Idealistic young lawyer Patricia Egan has a housemate she doesn't like and a client she doesn't want—a professional safecracker who seems far removed from the well-heeled civil clients her law firm has been representing in a visionary alternative energy project. But the safecracker and some city officials and investors in the project are closely linked in their respective criminal enterprises, something they want no one to discover, certainly not Patricia and her fellow lawyer and accidental housemate, Jack Alexander.