Journalism instructor on the outside, unrepentant hippie within, Paul Wilson signs on at a startup newspaper to track down rumors that Bush and Cheney had advance warning of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Two other reporters accompany him to Washington: adventurous Debra, demure but braless, and the more conservative Caitlin, a young Persian-American who plays Candide to Wilson’s Martin. Extracts from Caitlin's letters and diary (partly recorded in transliterated Farsi) alternate with third-person accounts of the investigation.

To get results, Wilson also has to work with two Arab-American reporters. Only he doesn’t trust them, isn’t sure whether the tales they relay are truth or lies. Though witness after witness corroborates the tale of a conspiracy involving the Vice-President and members of the Saudi royal family, it takes threats from two rogue FBI agents to convince him.

Still, it would be as misleading to characterize Conspiracy as an expose of the corruption and ineptitude of the Bush administration as to describe Cabaret as the story of the Nazis’ rise to power. For above all, Conspiracy is a novel about people, of the relationships among the reporters and those they encounter during the course of their investigation.


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