Malice is an historical mystery novel set in a few momentous weeks in the spring of 1961. As the Kennedy administration is barely underway, congressional aide Alexandra Bell works to stop a CIA catastrophe in the making, the botched invasion of Cuba. Meanwhile, her roommate, Gwen Gray, joins the Freedom Rides, the bold civil rights initiative that challenged southern segregationists on their own home territory. The language of freedom is everywhere in the beginning of the 1960s, but both Alex and Gwen soon realize it is often hypocritical and the real agenda is violence and suppression. These two young women will not surrender their hopes for a more just America, but they are up against enormous forces that threaten to crush each of them without hesitation. The events of those weeks and the outcomes defined the opposing American approaches to power for well into the twenty-first century. Indeed, the events of those weeks set in motion the forces that are today tearing the fabric of American democracy apart.