Stanford law professor, Jack Strider, is forced to abandon his goal of serving on the U.S. Supreme Court when his father involves him in a scandal, effectively ruining his reputation. Jobless and desperate, he accepts an assignment from an accredited law firm, which takes him to crime-ridden Juarez, Mexico, San Francisco and the Oval Office.
His brief is to defend a corrupt corporate client, who is a kingpin in the business of illegal nuclear waste disposal. In the end Jack doesn't know who to trust, but decides that defending his client goes against his own principles of upholding the law and saving a poor community from nuclear annihilation.
This is a busy, action-packed thriller with lots of suspense and intriguing twists. It took me a while to get into it with its multiple characters, rather intricate legal jargon and frequent translations from Mexican, but once I did it was fast-paced and a page turner. It also covered well-researched and interesting information about the problems nuclear production companies have concerning waste disposal and the incredible hazards involved.