When a friend, Alex Ives, is implicated in a deadly motor collision on a deserted Southern California highway, Paul Madriani joins a case as tangled as any he's ever taken. Alex swears he had only one drink the night of the crash, but he also can't remember the events of the evening beyond the fact that he was to meet a sexy, mysterious woman at an elegant house party. The next morning he woke up in the hospital in police custody, charged with drunk driving and manslaughter. When Paul discovers that Alex knew the deceased, a connected, hard-charging Washington, D.C., lawyer named Olinda Serna, Madriani realizes the potential penalties for his client could include a death sentence.