In Dhaka, Bangladesh, a garment factory burns to the ground, claiming the lives of hundreds of workers. A bystander captures a heart-stopping image, a teenage girl lying in the dirt, her body broken by a multi-storey fall, and over her mouth a mask of fabric bearing the label of one of America's largest retailers. A year later, in Washington, D.C., Joshua Griswold, a disgraced former journalist, receives an anonymous summons from a corporate whistle-blower promising information that will fan the flames of a decades old controversy.