LEONID MCGILL knows something suspicious is going on as soon as the phone rings. Alphonse Rinaldo, the one man with a hand in every dark decision made in the five boroughs, has a problem that he needs McGill’s help to handle. What Rinaldo can’t accomplish on his own, McGill doesn’t really want to know. But Rinaldo’s not a client a Manhattan private eye can say no to, so McGill runs uptown to check on the young woman Rinaldo is worried about. McGill’s hardly pleased when he walks into the middle of a murder scene—and, thanks to his nefarious past, winds up as the NYPD’s prime suspect.
Everyone’s motives are murky in McGill’s world; that, he’s used to. What he’s not quite accustomed to is his own recent commitment to the straight and narrow. When Rinaldo won’t let McGill drop the case, or reveal his connection to the young woman in question McGill strikes a dangerous deal with himself: he’ll find the girl, but he’s not going to hand her over until he knows all there is to know about her, and why exactly Rinaldo’s so interested.
And so McGill plunges deep into contemporary New York City as only Walter Mosley can expose it, navigating an underworld that pulses with danger and violence.