Set in Toyama, Japan, the story begins when a car plunges off a pier into the freezing sea. The driver, a wealthy local businessman, drowns, but his young, glamorous wife, Kumako Onizuka, miraculously survives. The incident immediately draws the suspicion of the press and the police, primarily due to Kumako’s colorful past as a hostess and her previous criminal record.The narrative shifts between the courtroom and the newsroom as a local journalist, Moichi Akitani, leads a media crusade to brand Kumako a cold-blooded murderess who staged the accident for a 300-million-yen insurance payout. As public hatred for Kumako reaches a fever pitch, a court-appointed lawyer must untangle the web of circumstantial evidence and media bias to discover if Kumako is truly a victim of a tragic accident or a master manipulator. It is a sharp critique of yellow journalism and the fallibility of the Japanese legal system.