On an urban battleground dangerously divided along racial lines, probation officer Steve Baum is desperately struggling to hold on to the last remaining shreds of his idealism, until Darryl King invades his world. A deranged young sociopath, one of the most bloodthirsty creations of a diseased society, Darryl has come to drag Baum along with him into an inescapable morass of terror and corruption.

It has been two decades since Detective Francis X. Loughlin solved his first big case, the brutal murder of a woman doctor. The young man convicted of the killing, Julian Vega, is back on the streets now, released on a technicality after years of appeals. Not long after his release, another murder takes place, one so similar to that long-ago case that Julian is the first suspect in Detective Loughlin's sights.