The murder of union strongman Joseph Sessio shocks all of Boston, Massachusetts. Few individuals, outside of the Kennedy family, have been as well-known or loved by the blue-collar citizens of this historic city. The repercussions of his murder extend well beyond Sessio's immediate family and inadvertently impact the life of Taylor Brooke, the young and beautiful attorney assigned to defend Tommy Washington, the black youth accused of the crime.

In the course of her investigation, Taylor discovers a massive cover-up by the district attorney's office and begins to believe that Washington has been set up. Debra Gova, the DA, and John Stark, Taylor's former lover and the prosecutor in the case, may be involved. Joe Sessio's son, Michael, feeds her vital information about his father's business dealings, but he remains a suspect in the killing, and, despite the smoldering attraction she feels for him, Taylor doesn't trust him.

The case becomes personally complicated for her when Senator Frank Morgan, whose family name is synonymous with Massachusetts wealth and politics, surfaces in her life; the father who abandoned her as a child, he is seeking to establish a relationship they never had.

With Morgan, Sessio, and Stark pursuing her, each man bent on his own agenda, Taylor finds herself caught in a labyrinth of deception that leads through the corridors of Boston's blueblooded society, across the union docks of Boston harbor, to the corrupted heart of the Massachusetts legal system, where in the end Taylor must fight not only to save Tommy Washington's life, but also her own.