If he had ever wondered what his life would have been like if he had made the other decision -- to follow the law -- not his art, Pender Cobb finds out very quickly.
The story follows how he adapts to the parallel world and its bewildering society with its lax morals and heightened mortal dangers; to a different wife -- not Susan, with whom he has been happily in love, but to a wife who is openly having an affair with another man; how he seeks and finds Susan, who is the mother of two children and is married to a stranger; how he conducts the murder trial; how he handles the prestigious law firm of which he is the senior partner and which he discovers is routinely engaged in illegal activities and treasonable practices, etc.
These and other adventures form a series of surprise after surprise events, and lead to a resolution in the parallel world... and the world he left behind... to which he ultimately returns.
