On the foggy and desolate Seattle waterfront, a grey-haired, gray-eyed man foils a mugging. His name is Devereaux - the November Man. His act of salvation is the first, unexpected step on a perilous odyssey to the remote wilderness of Alaska. His quest is for a mysterious individual named Henry McGee, the sometimes American, sometimes Russian master manipulator, teller of tales, and treacherous link between the superpowers, in a bizarre, far-reaching plot to destroy U.S. Intelligence. The November Man is the unwilling intstrument of the plan's success - or the determined key to its failure.