Derek Strange is an ex-cop who's making a good living with his own business, a detective agency called Strange Investigations. A new case hits him close to home: A police officer has been slain by another policeman in a confusing late-night clash, and the dead officer's mother asks Strange to help her make sense of his killing. That mother's request sends Strange into the darkest chasms of the D.C. underworld, where police officers and criminals operate by their own secret laws, and where human life is sometimes of less consequence than cash, drugs, and other forms of currency.

Strange is joined in his quest by Terry Quinn, the officer who was exonerated in the police inquiry into the shooting but who is still haunted by that terrifying night. Together Strange and Quinn confront the ravages of an unquenchable drug trade, the realities of race in the capital police force, and some of the most implacable, dead-eyed killers ever to haunt the pages of a novel.