An Ayatollah grins at the successful launch of a new Kharramshar missile in the foothills of southern Iran.

Downrange, the U.S. Navy's newest warship tracks and recovers its two stages. In Quantico, Virginia, the FBI takes the missile apart. How did the Iranians produce the key rollover mechanism so that it mimicked an American component made by Nova Aerospace Company?

Nova asks Robert Herrick, the famous "Lawyer for the Little Guy," to find out. It's way outside his usual practice. And a possible culprit, the shadowy company known as Dravos Corporation, hires a street fighter named Jimmy Coleman to defend it. He's the head of litigation at the megafirm of Booker and Bayne, where an army of associates can crank out arguments supporting almost any position Mr. Coleman wants to take.

Along the way, Robert comes across the eccentric genius who developed the basic design. There's a street vagabond who saw something and said something. A soldier who visited Dravos Corporation. And Iranian agents out to kill Robert. He will have to fight with primitive energy to find justice for his client . . . and for his country . . . and to save his own life. Robert Herrick is . . . The Plaintiff's Lawyer