Trumble is a minimum security federal prison, home to an assortment of criminals - drug dealers, bank robbers, swindlers, embezzlers, tax evaders, and others from up and down the social scale. There are also three former judges who call themselves The Brethren. They meet each day in the law library where they write briefs, handle cases for other inmates, practice law without a license, and sometimes dispense jailhouse justice. They also spend hours hatching schemes to make money. Then one of their scams goes awry. It snares an innocent on the outside, a man with dangerous friends. And The Brethren's days of quietly marking time are over.