After a senator's scandalous death, police detective Ben Tolliver investigates the man's wretchedly corrupt family.

Ten years after leaving the Senate, Clayton Cunningham III remains as powerful as ever. In his boardroom, he rules over a business empire that stretches across the globe. In his dining room, he controls his family with a tight fist. And in his bedroom, well — in his bedroom the senator does whatever he wants. After commanding his children to get an SEC investigation of the family finances under control, he retires to make love to his mistress. He is just starting to enjoy himself when he feels a pain — and drops dead.

NYPD homicide detective Ben Tolliver plans to make Cunningham's lover his chief witness, but she dies of an apparent suicide not long after the senator's demise. As public pressure mounts to find Cunningham's killer, Tolliver grapples with a family for whom lying is second nature — and murder might come easily as well.