David Gale was an active member of Deathwatch, an anti-capital punishment activist group. Constance is a fellow Deathwatch activist. When Constance is found raped and murdered, Gale is convicted of the crime. Now Gale awaits execution, and with less than a week before his date with the fatal injection, Gale agrees to tell his story to Bitsy, a nervy journalist from a major newsmagazine. As she discusses the facts of the murder with Gale, it occurs...

Police investigating an exploded boat on a San Pedro pier discover 27 bodies and $91 million worth of drug money. The only survivors are a severely burned Hungarian terrorist and Roger Kint, a crippled con-man. Reluctantly, Kint is pressured into explaining what happened on the boat. His story begins six weeks earlier with five criminals being dragged in by New York police desparate for suspects in a truck highjacking, and ends with the possible identification...