This story involves a young attorney who meets a beautiful blond woman, has a short affair, and then, reluctantly agrees to represent her in a murder trial. The woman is destroyed and the attorney feels it may be his fault, and leaves the practice of law. Five years later the attorney, now a small college law professor, is surprised by the woman's daughter who arrives and asks the attorney to represent her in a second murder trial. Again, the attorney is trapped by his guilt, and he agrees to represent the daughter which commences a mystery that must be solved if the daughter is to be acquitted. Perhaps even the mother can be saved. Personal relationships become intense and shift as the action and unraveling develop, and nothing is clear until the end of the story. This book involves two criminal trials, deceiving participants, car chases, mysterious notes, an unexplained key, and troubling actions by public officials. In the end it is a story of the great success of a young man, bad behavior, followed by an attempt at redemption. The reader is never sure as to how the personal resolution will evolve.