An air liner flying over a middle eastern desert is forced to land in a remote spot and the passengers locked up. All are Americans or Britons. A man from the U.S. Embassay is interrogated and threatened unless he convinces another prisoner, an oil company executive, to collaborate with a new (unsaid but implied Soviet) regime.
The story deals with the heroic efforts of nearly 40 years ago of Charles Seymour Whitman, New York County district attorney, to suppress attempts by gambling elements to gain control of city government. Whitman's prosecution of Police Lt. Becker after the officer was found to be implicated in the 1913 assassination of gambling boss Herman Rosenthal.