In a racially mixed American town, a five-year-old black girl falls unnoticed into a hidden, forgotten well on her way to school. Having nothing better to go on, the police follow up a report that the child was seen with a white stranger, and rumors run wild. Before hapless, innocent Claude Packard is even found, popular hysteria has him tried and convicted. But is he guilty?

Sammy Hogarth, a vaudeville comedian who now has his own TV show, is a ruthless egomaniac who demands instant obedience from his staff and heaps abuse on those in lesser positions than his. His most vituperative behavior, however, is reserved for his weak-willed brother, Lester, whom Sammy has hired as his assistant but whom he really uses as his whipping boy.

Gerald Daniels is granted a last request on the eve of his execution. He asks for a typewriter. He writes a letter to a newspaper that recounts his criminal career. In the letter he explains how he once murdered a waitress who was trying to blackmail him, how the D.A. convicted her ex-husband of the crime, and how the man had been executed. He writes that he, now, is in the same position: he is going to be executed for a crime he did not commit. Before his death, he wants to testify that the D.A. is not only a sloppy prosecutor, but also a murderer.

A missing message from rogue mathematician Alan Turing surfaces as part of the celebrations for his 100th birthday... in code it provides the key to a century old puzzle that if solved will bestow academic immortality - and crash the world into chaos.