The case she didn't need. The client she didn't want. The trial she couldn't win. Fresh off her single-handed defense against alien adversaries in a galactic courtroom, Maxine Justice discovers that saving the Earth is not enough to earn a hero's welcome back home. Once again broke and now looking for revenge, her return to night court as a public defender takes an immediate detour when she's tasked with defending a Therapod murder suspect. The case drags her into the quirky theories of her new client, Father Gilbert Barthes, and the corrupt underbelly of corporate robotics. As her defense takes on global significance, Maxine lands squarely in the crosshairs of new enemies determined to conceal their plans for acquiring the planet. Worse, her probably guilty client may be the only one who can expose what's really happening. Stripped of all credibility and most of her friends, can Maxine find some way to save humanity when the world is bent on self-destruction? Or will Earth finally succumb to the most unlikely deception?