Publisher's Summary

Once a devastated mill town, by 1959 Locke City has established itself as a thriving center of vice tourism. The city is controlled by boss Royal Beaumont, who took it by force many years ago and has held it against all comers since.

Now his domain is being threatened by an invading crime syndicate. But in a town where crime and politics are virtually indivisible, there are other players awaiting their turn onstage.

Beaumont imports a hired killer, Walker Dett, a master tactician whose trademark is wholesale destruction.

In a stunning departure from his usual territory, Andrew Vachss gives us a masterful novel that is also an epic story of postwar America. A searing portrait of corruption in a small town, this is Vachss's most ambitious, innovative, and explosive work yet.

©2005 Andrew Vachss; (P)2005 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.