Jake Carlson, a correspondent for the TV news show AMERICAN OUTRAGE, inhabits a world of sensational trials and crazed celebrities. One of the nation's top journalists, he's used to dragging himself into the dirt to get the truth. When his adopted son Sam asks him to use his muckraking talents to find his birth mother, Jake is stunned by the ugly secrets he uncovers: an international crime syndicate, a horrifying child trafficking ring, and a corrupt politician, the patriarch of an old New York financial dynasty.