In the feverish, money-making age of railroad barons, political machines, and gold rushes, corruption was the rule, not the exception.  yet the Republican mogul Alexander "Big Alex" McKenzie defied even the era's standard for avarice.  Charismatic and shameless, he arrived in the new Alaskan territory intent on controlling gold mines and draining them of their ore.  Miners who had rushed to the frozen tundra to strike gold were appauled at his unabashed deviousness.  A most Wicked Conspiracy recounts McKenzie's plot to rob the gold fields.  it's a sotry of how America's political and economic life was in the grip of domineering, self dealing, seemingly untouchable Yet it is also the tale of a righteous resistance of working-class miners, muckraking journalists, and courageous judges who fought to expose a conspiracy and reassert the rule of law.