Stephen D. Senturia spent 36 years as a Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is the author of three prominent textbooks, several hundred scientific papers, and several dozen patents. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2003. Since retiring from his life in high technology, he has been an active member of the Harvard Institute for Learning in Retirement, leading seminars on subjects as diverse as the physics of musical instruments, the geology of the Colorado Plateau, and the craft of fiction. His first novel, One Man's Purpose, was published in 2015. In Cross Purposes, he follows Martin Quint and his wife Jenny into the next phase of their marriage.