It is the greatest truth of our age: information is not knowledge. Manhattan, September 13, 2023. The air is so filthy that the populace are urged to venture outside only if their business is urgent. For Vera Price, her visit to criminal psychologist Dr Gideon Wolfe is just that. Her husband, special effects wizard John Price, has been murdered, and she needs Gideon's help in solving the case. On a disc she gives Gideon is the information that almost certainly cost her husband his life. For America is still in shock after the murder of its president, and the disc suggests the wrong man has been convicted. In the internet age, the world is drowning in information.

And in a sea of unregulated and unverifiable facts, the truth is harder and harder to find. Especially when deception is a daily occurrence, and doctored evidence and digitally manipulated images are distorting reality to breaking point. And as Gideon discovers, although there are those who want to put an end to this, their actions have the consequences of not only killing people, but of killing time itself .