A Harvest of Thorns

In Dhaka, Bangladesh, a garment factory burns to the ground, claiming the lives of hundreds of workers. Amid the rubble, a bystander captures a heart-stopping photograph - a teenage girl lying in the dirt, her body broken by a multi-storey fall, and over her mouth a mask bearing the label of one of America’s largest retailers, Presto Omnishops Corporation.

Eight thousand miles away, at Presto’s headquarters in Virginia, Cameron Alexander, the company’s long-time general counsel, watches the media coverage of the fire in horror, wondering if the damage can be contained. When the photo goes viral, fanning the flames of a decades-old controversy about sweatshops, labour rights and the ethics of globalization, he launches an investigation into the disaster that will reach further than he could ever imagine - and threaten everything he has left in the world.

A year later, in Washington, DC, disgraced former journalist Joshua Griswold receives an anonymous summons from a corporate whistleblower who offers him confidential information about Presto and the fire. Deploying his old journalistic skills, Griswold builds a historic case against Presto, setting the stage for a war in the courtroom and in the media that he is determined to win - both to salvage his reputation and to provoke a revolution of conscience in Presto’s boardroom that could transform the fashion industry across the globe.