On April 19, 1995, terrorism struck the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. It was not the work of a secret foreign cabal or a maniacal suicide bomber. Timothy McVeigh - son of the working class, army hero, the kid next door - was about to become the worst mass-murderer in American history. Richard Serrano, a Los Angeles Times reporter, arrived in Oklahoma City with the fire engines still racing to the blast site, and he never left the story. On the basis of hundreds of interviews, including an in-depth exclusive with McVeigh himself, Serrano takes us along as the bomb components are collected and a seemingly normal young man hardens his resolve to save the country he loves at the expense of the government he hates.