Christopher Dorr, a brilliant journalist, has gone missing in Thailand. While Mike is spending the summer working for a magazine in Hong Kong, his editor sends him to Bangkok to report on the crackdown on drug-tourism. But Mike's real mission is to find Dorr, an old friend of his parents. It is a quest that propels Mike into fast, seedy nights in Thailand and back to New York, to a home wrecked by violence. The Third Brother moves with the speed of a bullet to portray a young man and a family shattered by lies and by excess.