A dead girl in a blood-soaked basement and a young loser wrongly convicted. Just the combination to pit a disgraced detective against people in high places in a tale as gritty as a Bronx back alley. Sam Free may doubt his client's innocence, but he knows the cops working the Hunts Point section are dirty. The question is: How deep does the dirt reach? As Free probes the connections between a rest home and a dead slumlord, he inadvertently exposes a courthouse scheme in which railroading an innocent man is the least of the crimes. Facing a corrupt judge and cops who murder, Sam puts himself and his wife in jeopardy in a harsh, vividly written page-turner.