In a novel of international intrigue, an American lawyer, Damon Pierce, attempts to save Bobby Okari, the West African leader of a protest movement, from execution by the countryās corrupt and autocratic leader. Pierce is in a race against time, and as the complex trialāinvolving terrorism and the geopolitics of oil, missing witnesses and evidence, and the whims of a lawless countryāunfolds, bodies fall and fates dangle.
Complicating matters further is Okariās wife, Marissa Brand, with whom Pierce had a relationship years before that heās never quite forgotten; she, in fact, persuaded him to take the case in the first place, and it is who she plays a crucial role in the eventual outcome of this taut and atmospheric novel.