Darby Shaw, a Tulane University law student, conducts research on Rosenberg and Jensen's records and writes a legal brief speculating they were not killed for political reasons.

Gray Grantham, a reporter for The Washington Post, is contacted by an informant calling himself "Garcia", who believes he has seen something in his law office that is related to the assassinations.

Shaw shows her findings to Grantham, believing that the assassinations were committed on behalf of Victor Mattiece, an oil tycoon who seeks to drill on Louisiana marshland which is home to an endangered species of pelican.

Despite their status as ideological opposites, the two slain justices had a single characteristic in common: a history of environmentalism, causing Shaw to surmise that Mattiece orchestrated their murders to make sure their replacements would be appointed by the current president, a hardline reactionary.

Morgan reveals that, some time before the assassinations, he accidentally looked at an internal correspondence and realized that some of his co-workers were involved in the murders.

Voyles appears at the newsroom and reveals that he has a tape recording of the conversation with the President ordering him to stop working on the brief, and that the CIA was investigating Mattiece and killed Khamel to save Shaw's life.

Kirkus Reviews called the book a "gripping legal suspenser," writing that it "is a tale that baits its own hooks with the lures of All the President's Men.

"[3] Publishers Weekly wrote that the author "delivers a suspenseful plot at a breakneck pace, although his characters are stereotypes.