Tom Kane, the mayor of the Windy City of Chicago, is arguably the big spider at the center of the city's web of power, which is also a web of contracts between power and progress. People want to be led, disputes are settled, work is assigned, and loyalty is rewarded, and if this can only be achieved through deception and immoral means, Tom Kane thinks so. As long as the task is completed, people will look at it differently. Although he is one of the most successful mayors in recent years, the emerging claws of Alzheimer's are peeling everything away from him, and he cannot trust his memory, his closest allies, or even himself. His wife, Meredith, did not know this, and their marriage was also the product of interests and power trends; his adviser, Kitty O'Neil, had always been suspicious of him but dared not speak out; and his political adviser, Ezra Stone, a bad-tempered Yale graduate, was still in the dark. Only Emma, the daughter who quarreled with Tom Kane.
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