In a small town in Tennessee, sleep deprivation causes terrifying increases in domestic violence, murder, suicide and road rage. When infectious diseases expert Kris Jensen arrives to investigate, she uncovers a global conspiracy that reaches from Madagascar to Germany...to the house next door.

In Stevens Crossing, insomnia is spreading like an infection, and the onset of sleep trouble is often heralded by a peculiar rash. Kris suspects the insomnia is caused by a new virus—a theory supported by visits with local doctors, the Health Department director, and the police chief.

As the town becomes more dangerous with many citizens armed and police having trouble keeping up with the escalating violence, Kris determines that one early insomniac may have been infected by a lemur when she learns that some lemurs can exhibit cathemerality – irregular sleep-wake patterns which she theorizes could be due to an insomnia virus.

Kris continues to trace the illness, discovering that a German lemur researcher may have brought the virus to a German neuropharmaceutical drug company that is secretly researching an insomnia-causing virus, the one that might be spreading in Stevens Crossing. As Kris works to gather more information about the virus and how to treat it, she encounters resistance at every turn.

Will she be able to find a deploy an effective treatment before sleep deprivation completely decimates Stevens Crossing…and spreads further?