The year is 1923, and one of Ohio's most prominent judges, O'Brien O'Donnell, fathers his first and only child. Though a joyous occasion for the recently married, fifty-nine year old, the birth sets off a terrifying chain of events, beginning with blackmail and the judge's near-fatal breakdown. His only hope for recovery lies with his trusted friend and colleague, Sarah Kaufman. As Sarah begins to unravel the clues surrounding O'Brien's collapse, she is repeatedly confronted with the explosively paradoxical forces that defined life in the twenties: sexual promiscuity and self-righteous morality, Progressive reform and political corruption, racial tolerance and institutionalized bigotry. It was O'Brien's unique ability to strike a compromise between these forces that made him so popular...and, she realizes, so vulnerable to attack.