Chicago private detective V.I. Warshawski is asked by a longtime client to look into his mother's suspicion that trespassers are living in the empty mansion her father built. V.I. discovers a corpse on the property that is found to be a young black journalist who was writing about members of a 1930s federal theater project and one member in particular who was blacklisted during the Communist witch hunt. V.I. is hired by the journalist's sister to investigate his death.
