In Houston, Texas, the energy capital of the world, oil and gas are king. To the shock of the city, Jonathan Pendergast, the CEO of one of the largest oil companies in the country, is gunned down on the front steps of his own home in the wealthy, venerable neighborhood of River Oaks.


One month later, his neighbor, Marvin Green, a nationally known professor at Rice University, was shot point-blank in the head in his office while working late on his latest anti-global warming book. The professor is an MIT-trained scientist and is a well-known advocate for representing oil companies' views that CO₂ emissions do not cause global warming. Both were killed with 9mm handguns.


The two have worked together before. Possible motives for the two killings include ambition, jealousy, envy, inheritance, ecological passion, and even ordinary robbery. Viable suspects are plenty. Mrs. Pendergast hires Dirk Wolfson, a private investigator and an ex-prosecutor, to find the killer or killers. Dirk has his own shadowy demons to deal with. As Dirk culls and analyzes evidence during the investigation, he ponders to himself, are these killings directly related, or are they random killings by a disgruntled employee or a misguided, passionate environmentalist? Dirk is keen on using modern technology to solve the murders.