Approximately 89,000 words Our Man in the Dark is set in 1964, in Atlanta and Los Angeles. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference have led the civil rights struggle to the tipping point. President Johnson has signed the Voting Rights Act. King has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. But J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI want to ruin King. They have decided their best chance is John Estem, a lonely accountant who works at the SCLC.
Estem feels under-appreciated by the pivotal players in the civil rights movement. He is tired of being overlooked and underestimated. Estem is a small man cursed with a limp and a metal brace he finds humiliating, the legacy of a childhood bout with polio. Power and respect have long evaded his grasp. Despite his inflated sense of what he should be allowed to contribute to the movement, he knows the history books won‟t mention him.
Estem handles the SCLC‟s finances every day. The money begins to call to him—not all of it, just $10,000, begging to be carried off and concealed. At first he tells himself he is going to use the money to seed a new civil rights initiative in Chicago, a project he proposed to the SCLC that was rejected. But he squanders the money instead. He tells himself no one will find out, but deep down he knows better. A black man depositing and spending such a large sum of money cannot remain unnoticed for long. Particularly when that black man works for King, and when Hoover‟s men are watching.
The FBI has been watching King and his fellow activists for years. They suspect communists have infiltrated the SCLC, and they want Estem to obtain the information their surveillance cannot. The FBI agents argue that it is Estem‟s duty, as both an American and as a civil rights supporter, to protect the SCLC from communist infiltration. As an incentive, they offer him a generous stipend and, in case that isn‟t enough, they tell him that they know about the stolen money. Estem must make a choice.
Although initially torn, he sees this, ironically, as an opportunity to get closer to King. Estem is increasingly drawn to King‟s power and charisma. His obsession with King complicates his act of betrayal. Estem sees the two of them as kindred spirits, ordinary men challenged by their era to ascend to greatness. Gradually, Estem deludes himself into believing that he has come to know King in a way that the public does not, and that few others do. He believes he knows the man behind the symbol.
Playing detective empowers Estem, but he soon learns that an informant‟s job is not simply relaying information. Initially, communism is the focus, but after uncovering evidence about King‟s sexual infidelities, the FBI wants Estem to pursue information that will undermine King‟s credibility as a moral leader.
With the FBI hungry for details about King, and under the pressure of hiding his growing portfolio of secrets, Estem‟s already-fragile personality begins to fray. His desperation drives him deep into Atlanta‟s shadow-world, an urban maze of obstacles and dark attractions that mirror his internal struggles. Estem‟s struggle, like King‟s, ends on that bloody balcony of the Lorraine Motel.