This is set in a future where telepathy is commonplace, allowing people to read each other’s thoughts. The skill of the telepaths, called Espers, all vary, and some of the very best ones work for the police department, solving crimes and identifying criminals by probing minds.
The story follows Ben Reich, an influential businessman in a disturbed state of mind as his family company is being driven to bankruptcy. He proposes a merger with his main competitor, Craye D’Courtney, but he is so addled that he misreads Craye’s positive response.
He then formulates a very elaborate plan to murder D’Courtney and still evade the Espers, while recruiting a very skilled esper himself to pull this off. Lincoln Powell is the esper prefect of police, and is determined to solve the murder. What begins is a cat-and-mouse police procedural, involving several characters and plot twists.
The main characters are Ben Reich and Lincoln Powell, but with a cast of several other people of varying importance to the plot, the whole story gets rather muddled. This is not helped by the fact that Ben Reich’s motivations and actions are unreliable given his psychological state. A great, but rather confusing read.