Such a small murder so long ago should be forgiven in a place such as Youngstown-unless you understand the importance of keeping time.

LouAnn Epperson is a pioneering computer scientist who is poised to deliver the promise of the dawning Information Age. But the entrenched sexists who control science, academia, technology, government, and business dismiss her because of her gender, her background, and her abilities that are lost on them.

Instead, LouAnn is guided by the wisdom of her father, the "timekeeper" at a steel mill in Youngstown, Ohio. LouAnn confronts the impact of time and technology as she leaves her Caltech lab to deal with her father's mysterious death. Returning to her industrial hometown, she reunites with her college boyfriend, an obituary reporter at the local newspaper. Together, they uncover a deadly secret: The Timekeeper is a whistleblower killed for information that would scuttle a consequential merger sanctioned by the US government. Their story sweeps across events that decimate communities such as Youngstown and reset global economies at a turbulent transition in time.

In a masterful debut novel, journalist Dale Peskin weaves original events from a flashpoint at the end of the industrial era and the beginning of the Computer Age into a human story that considers what has been lost-and what replaces it-in the sweeping social, economic, political, and technological upheavals that now play out in today's headlines.