Jock Boucher is no sooner appointed a U.S. District Judge than he has to take over the caseload of an ailing senior judge and immediately steps into a 20-year-old case of corruption, murder and intrigue. Scientist Bob Palmetto and lawyer Ruth Kalin emerge from hiding long enough to entangle Boucher in the race for undersea methane hydrate a volatile and dangerous, but extremely valuable new source of energy. Some will stop at nothing to get it, including murdering anyone who gets in their way, even a federal judge or two.