Millie Rivers, mother of a woman wrongly arrested, asks attorney Alan Gold simply to find out how her daughter died while in jail awaiting trial. Although he has avoided stress his entire life, he only agrees to report back to her after a brief investigation and close his file. Slowly, lies and emotions draw him into the battle of his life, a case in 1979 that tears Columbus, Ohio, apart. The old white establishment defends the mayor, who is running for reelection, and greets emerging black forces demanding a stake in government. Gold is middle-aged and ill-equipped to carry the cause further, while the mayor has nearly all the levers of power at his disposal. Gold's intriguing journey takes the reader from marble halls to prison cells, smokey bars, and finally to a common-pleas courtroom, where a jury of eight grapples with intractable issues dividing the city as they deliberate a lawsuit based on newly created laws. A legal thriller exposing the dynamism of truth facing power.