Shift Commander Clyde Packer begins his morning rounds on death row before dawn. Inmates spend 23 hours a day in their cells, sustained by hope for a legal miracle despite grim statistics. “The Row” is unusually quiet following news of Sam’s execution date. Packer privately believes that Sam should not be executed.

Sam’s cell contains sparse possessions: a television, a radio, a typewriter, law books, and legal files. His neighbors are J. B. Gullitt, whom Sam once helped secure a stay of execution, and Hank Henshaw. Sam recalls the last time he saw his grandson, then named Alan, the day before the Kramer bombing.

A television report announces the news of Sam’s impending execution. Attorney General Roxburgh appears on screen promising justice. Sam retrieves Adam’s representation agreement and begins typing his own heavily revised version. Guards arrive with breakfast; one jokes about Sam’s last meal, and Gullitt angrily tells them to serve food in silence.

By 9:30 am, Sam has finished his revised representation agreement. Packer escorts him in handcuffs to the conference room, where Adam waits.

Adam reviews Sam’s revised agreement. The terms are non-negotiable: Sam retains the right to fire Adam at any time, only Adam can work on the case, Adam cannot witness the execution, and Adam is forbidden from approaching the governor about clemency. When Adam asks him to stop using racial slurs, Sam mocks the request. Adam agrees to all of Sam’s terms. They sign the agreement.

Adam begins questioning Sam about the bombing, seeking new facts for appeals. Sam denies having an accomplice for earlier bombings, which Adam doubts. Sam recounts the night of the Kramer bombing: retrieving the car, checking the dynamite and timing device, and waiting in a Greenville coffee shop for the explosion. The bomb was set for five o’clock in the morning to avoid casualties but failed to detonate on schedule. By the time Sam realized that people had arrived at Kramer’s office, he worried it was too late to warn anyone without implicating himself. He claims that he briefly considered making an anonymous call but had no change for the pay phone. The bomb exploded while he was across the street, knocking him down.

Sam paces and exercises in the conference room while complaining about missing his recreation time. He reflects on the futility of maintaining good health while waiting to be executed. He explains why he chose not to testify at his trials: In the first two trials with all-white juries, testimony was not necessary. In the third, his lawyer Benjamin Keyes advised against it because prosecutors could force him to admit planting the bomb and discuss other bombings. More critically, Dogan’s testimony had been devastating.

Sam reveals that Dogan and his wife died in a house fire exactly one year after Dogan testified against him. The FBI questioned Sam, but Dogan’s death was ruled accidental. Sam implies that Dogan was murdered, likely by someone he feared. When Adam suggests suing Keyes for ineffective counsel, Sam refuses, insisting that Keyes did excellent work.

Sam confirms that he considered fleeing to South America. He never imagined he would be prosecuted again after beating two trials and regrets not running. The conversation ends when Adam mentions that Lee wants to visit. Sam curtly refuses and calls for the guard.

That afternoon, Mann tells Naifeh that Adam has been granted authorization to represent Sam. Naifeh, suffering from back pain and exhausted by executions, complains about pressure from Governor McAllister and Attorney General Roxburgh, both of whom are jockeying for publicity. He summons Nugent and delegates the responsibility of managing Sam’s execution to him. Naifeh hands Nugent the procedural manual for executions. After Nugent leaves, Mann and Naifeh agree that he’s a fanatic who needs close supervision.

In Memphis, Adam calls Goodman in Chicago to report his progress. Baker Cooley warns Adam that reporters know about his relation to Sam. Adam calls Todd Marks of the Memphis Press and agrees to meet at the Peabody Hotel.

At the bar, Adam sets ground rules: Everything is off the record. He confirms that Sam is his grandfather but refuses to discuss family history and the content of his meetings with Sam. After Marks presses for details, Adam ends the meeting, warning that he will cut off all contact if Marks violates their agreement.

That evening, Sam reflects on irritating prison rules, which he circumvents with the help of his neighbors Gullitt and Henshaw. When Gullitt asks about his new lawyer, Sam reveals that he’s his grandson from Chicago. Gullitt expresses fear about losing Sam, his trusted legal advisor and only friend on death row. For three years, Sam has reviewed Gullitt’s legal documents and provided guidance. Sam reassures him that they have a good chance.

Sam receives notes from “Preacher Boy,” an inmate seven cells down who offers prayers and tells him about a prophetic dream he had. Sam reads the notes with annoyance, relieved that Preacher Boy has at least stopped his disruptive gospel singing. As the hot night settles in, Sam lies on his bunk reading case law, studying the legal landscape for any opening that might save his life.

The next afternoon, Adam visits Lee at the Auburn House, a charity center where she volunteers as a counselor for teenage mothers from the projects. Lee carelessly introduces Adam to a coworker as her nephew and a lawyer from Chicago, a mistake that Adam warns will likely lead reporters to realize her relationship to Sam.

That evening, Lee confesses that she’s recovering from alcoholism. Though she has been drinking with Adam the past two nights, she has now thrown out all alcohol and asks for his support in staying sober. Adam agrees.

Lee gives a cynical account of wealthy Memphis society life. She explains that she and Phelps remain married only to avoid scandal for his banking family, though both lead separate lives. When Adam asks about her son, Walt, Lee reveals that he’s gay and has lived in Europe since dropping out of Cornell. Walt went to Amsterdam, fell in love, and lives there now. Phelps handled the confrontation disastrously, permanently destroying their relationship. Lee now meets Walt in Paris once a year. Walt knows nothing about Sam’s past in the KKK, and Sam doesn’t know that Walt is gay. When Adam asks if there are more family secrets, Lee replies that they haven’t scratched the surface.

Sam turns furious when he sees the morning television news reporting the Memphis Press story about Adam representing his grandfather.

When Packer arrives to escort Sam to the law library, Sam argues about his lost recreation time. Packer promises two hours that afternoon and two hours daily moving forward. As they transport Sam, Packer makes a dark joke about taking a deep breath, a reference to the gas chamber.

In the law library, Sam confronts Adam about the newspaper article. Adam explains that the reporter violated their agreement but acknowledges that the damage is done. He then presents his legal strategy: a petition arguing that the gas chamber constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. He plans to use Mississippi’s botched executions as evidence.

Sam provides gruesome details of the 1982 execution of Teddy Doyle Meeks, in which a drunk executioner failed twice to properly mix the gas, leaving Meeks convulsing for several minutes before dying. He describes the 1986 execution of Maynard Tole, another horrific scene in which officials closed the curtains to hide the inmate’s suffering. After Tole, the prison installed a leather head brace to prevent the sight of an inmate’s head banging against a pole.

Sam lectures Adam on the history of gas chambers, which were designed in the 1920s and 1930s as a more humane alternative to malfunctioning electric chairs. He describes the dangers: The chambers leak toxic fumes; the cleanup crew must spray ammonia on everything, including the corpse; and the inmate’s clothes must be cut off, bagged, and burned. Sam speculates about what he will wear to the chamber, considering going naked as a final act of defiance. Eventually convinced that the strategy has merit, Sam begins pulling law books from the shelves.

The novel shifts to a hidden Nazi compound in the western United States. Rollie Wedge, who now goes by the name Roland Forchin, discovers the stories about Adam Hall representing Sam Cayhall. After fleeing from the aftermath of the Kramer bombing, Wedge lived abroad in Northern Ireland, Libya, Munich, Belfast, and Lebanon, briefly returning to the United States to observe Sam’s first two trials. He has been waiting 23 years for Sam’s execution to ensure that their shared secret dies with him. Worried that Sam might confess about his role in the bombing to Adam, Wedge decides he must go to Memphis.

On Saturday, Adam finalizes the gas-chamber petition with Goodman, who faxes revisions from Chicago. Goodman is ready to testify about witnessing the Tole execution and will contact Peter Wiesenberg as a supporting witness.

Adam drives to Calico Rock, Arkansas, to find retired FBI agent Wyn Lettner, who now runs a trout dock. As they fish and drink beer, Lettner recounts the FBI’s war against the KKK in the 1960s, describing their tactics of harassment and bribery. He remains evasive about whether Sam had an accomplice.

After dinner, Lettner grows more candid over scotch. He insists that Sam is guilty and reveals that Sam shot and killed at least two Black men in the 1950s and was never charged. He dismisses witnesses who claimed to see Sam with another person on the day of the Kramer bombing and argues that the bombs required no expertise.

Adam wakes the next morning with a severe hangover. As Lettner drives him back to his car, he apologizes for his harshness and admits that the FBI always suspected that Sam had a partner. Lettner explains that after the fifth KKK bombing, an informant at Dogan’s car lot led them to an employee named Virgil. Lettner coerced Virgil into revealing that the bombings were being carried out by a young man from another state, someone new to the local KKK who was skilled with explosives. The FBI never identified a suspect, and the investigation stopped when Sam was arrested for the Kramer bombing. When Adam asks why Dogan implicated Sam instead of the real bomber at trial, Lettner implies that Dogan feared testifying against a terrorist who remained free and dangerous.

Adam drives back to Memphis, where Lee shows him the sensationalized Sunday Memphis Press story. Attorney General Roxburgh and Governor McAllister are quoted as being committed to seeking justice. Kramer’s elderly father makes a bitter statement saying that he wants to witness Sam’s execution. Adam feels hopeless and vulnerable after reading the story. Feeling sick from his hangover and the news, he asks for a Valium instead of dinner.

Adam visits Sam shortly after filing his petition on the ethics of gas-chamber executions. He recounts what Lettner told him about Sam’s suspected accomplice. Sam dismisses the information and tells Adam to stop searching for John Doe. Adam says that he needs to believe Sam is innocent.

This leads to a confrontation about Sam’s hatred and why he bombed innocent people. Adam demands to know what went wrong with Eddie. Sam reluctantly tells the story: Eddie was best friends with Quince Lincoln, the son of a Black farmworker, and was disturbed that they could not attend school together. As Eddie grew older, he became increasingly sympathetic to Black people and opposed to segregation, putting him at odds with Sam. They fought constantly, and Eddie left home at 18 to join the Army. Sam last saw Eddie at his mother’s funeral, knowing his son was disappearing from his life forever.

Adam then describes his itinerant childhood in California, which was marked by observations of Eddie’s behavior: Eddie’s inability to hold jobs, his paranoia, and his constant letter-writing campaigns against various authorities. Adam describes his experience of finding Eddie’s corpse in the house after Sam’s third trial ended. When Sam asks if Adam blames him for Eddie’s death, they erupt into argument. Sam angrily says that he will take full responsibility for Eddie’s death and adds it to his list of victims. Adam asks about rumors of other killings, and Sam explodes, yelling that he is tired of talking about dead people and tired of Adam. He demands that Adam focus on legal action or leave.