It's been five years since former trumpet star Ronnie Reboulet, a charismatic yet distant man, has picked up his horn. His companion, Betty Millard, herself a cancer survivor, has helped him cobble together a life free of drugs, away from the music business, even though she wants, more than anything else, to hear him play again.

After Ronnie's estranged daughter Rae, a single mother and an aspiring singer of dubious talent, reenters his life, Ronnie attempts a comeback that will have readers rooting for him, even as his life with Betty hangs in the balance. Unfolding against the shadow of Patty Hearst's kidnapping in 1970s San Francisco, and composed in short, sensual scenes that segue into one another like a songman's medley, Blue Bossa captures the complicated way that people enter and leave each other's lives.