In January 1864 Abraham Lincoln's hopes for a military victory in the Civil War are fading and members of his cabinet are working behind the scenes to replace him as the Republican candidate for the November presidential election. At that time an angry and destitute Harrison Hunt, cast out from the Union Army at the height of the Civil War, arrives in Washington looking to restore his self-respect in a world that labels him as a failure. He talks himself into a job as a detective for the Metropolitan Police in Washington DC on the strength of his previous army commission and a well-spun, completely fictitious tale of his early life as a deputy marshal out west. His assigned partner is the perceptive Detective Schultz, who initially refuses to work with him, but when Hunt fumbles an investigation into the murder of John Anderson, a newspaper editor, Schultz realizes his own reputation is at stake and reluctantly steps in to help. Hunt's first-day failure as a detective haunts him, and he is extremely distracted by his infatuation with John Anderson's beautiful daughter. Schultz and Hunt's fragile partnership is shattered during a violent confrontation in the cellar of the White House. The killers are Confederate agents, and this time, the Power of the Press and the Letter of the Law are on their side. Harrison Hunt knows how to stop them, but he is outranked by the pedantic Schultz, who does his job according to the rulebook and damn the consequences. Hunt is a man born to action who now must learn to fight with words in a world where his skill with knife and gun cannot help him. Only minutes remain to outwit his enemies, save the country and regain his self-respect.When you can't change the rules, you need to change the game.
