In 1999, Tom had to write an article about the 30th anniversary of the Manson murders. He tells the editor that he'd worked with for years:

she just says "dig around and find an angle" and boy does he.

The main hook is that Vincent Bugliosi's trial against the family was full of maleficence, from planting a prosecutor on the defense team to sabotage them, to the fact that some of the principle witnesses lied on the stand.

Tom goes to interview Bugliosi, he start's going ballistic when Tom brings up some of the evidence he's uncovered. If there's smoke (coming out the ears) there's fire.

20 years of researching eventually leads him to MKUltra, Allen Dulles, and of course JFK and Jack Ruby.