Clockers follows intertwining storylines of low level cocaine dealer Ronald "Strike" Dunham and homicide detective Rocco Klein in the fictional New Jersey city of Dempsey (Which shares many similarities with Jersey City, NJ - where author Richard Price spent extensive time researching the subject matter.)

Strike is surprised by this offer from his law-abiding, working-man brother, and responds noncommittally, assuming his remark is just a drunken boast.

He is shocked the next day to find that Darryl has been shot dead in the Ahab's parking lot by an unknown assailant.

Strike recognizes that Champ will have them both killed if he discovers their side business, but agrees to participate, believing he has no other choice.

Victor gives a full confession for Darryl's murder, but his self-defense story does not match witness accounts and Rocco believes that he is in fact innocent.

His obsessive investigation begins to lead him to Strike, who he believes is a much more likely murderer than the hard working and law-abiding Victor.

He later learns from Rodney that Buddha Hat also went behind Champ's back to take a bit of Papi's profits, and murdered him when he refused to pay.

[2] The New York Times wrote that the book "manages to come across as both clear-eyed and bighearted, able to illuminate and celebrate, in the midst of the most unpromising circumstances imaginable, a cop's heroism and a small-time drug dealer's stubborn resilience, without overly sentimentalizing either.

"[1] Kirkus Reviews called Clockers "a vital and bold novel rich in unexpected pleasure, with Price generally avoiding melodrama, sentimentality, and stereotype to portray a harsh world with cleareyed compassion.