Professor Dennis Thomas arrives at the law office of Ben Kincaid with a bizarre request: Thomas wants to know if Kincaid can help him beat a murder chargeĐof a killing yet to happen. The professorŐs intended victim: a Tulsa cop who had refused to authorize a search for ThomasŐs missing wife. For seven days, Joslyn Thomas had lain in the twisted wreckage of her car, dying a horrifically slow death in an isolated ravine. Now, insane with grief, Thomas wants to kill Detective Christopher Sentz. Kincaid warns him not to, but that very same day someone fires seven bullets into the police officer.
Suddenly KincaidŐs conversation with Thomas is privileged and Thomas is begging Kincaid to defend him. Thomas claims he didnŐt shoot SentzĐeven though heŐd wanted to. Something about the bookish, addled Dennis Thomas tugs on KincaidŐs conscience, and against all advice, he decides to represent this troubled man in the center of a media and political firestorm.
But the trial doesnŐt go KincaidŐs way, and a verdict of capital murder is bearing down on Dennis Thomas. ThatŐs when KincaidŐs personal private detective, Loving, starts prying loose pieces of a shocking secret. Working in the shadows of the law, using every trick that works, Loving risks his life to construct an entirely new narrative about Detective Sentz, Joslyn Thomas, and madness in another guise: the kind that every citizen should fear, and no one will recognizeĐuntil it is too late.