Jack drops out of college and miraculously lands a job on the state's leading newspaper. He comes under the wing of a grizzled newsman vet, Lee Robb, who trains him tough and fires him up to find a boffo career-building story early. Jack puts himself in a 1950's Insane Asylum to check out the suspicious death of an alcoholic named Patrick Francis Moran. Jack jumps the gun and circumvents his cautious managing editor and his safety net gets ripped. What's a boy to do when all help fails and he's stranded with a false identity, a shady purpose and a ward full of violent men and convict criminals? And those are the good guys because if the administration discovers him or his purpose, he is truly dead.