It is set in Washington DC and focuses on private investigators Derek Strange and Terry Quinn.

[1] The novel follows private investigators Derek Strange and Terry Quinn as they work on several cases in Washington DC.

Strange's main case is to provide evidence for the defense lawyers of drug lord Granville Oliver.

Strange is working on gathering evidence for the defence of drug trafficker Granville Oliver and is searching for a young woman named Devra Stokes.

His drug dealing crew includes Michael Montgomery and the volatile young Coates cousins, James and Jeremy.

Both McKinley and Durham use the same out-of-town gun dealer for their weapons, retired police officer Ulysses Foreman.

McKinley's enforcers James and Jeremy Coates perform a drive-by shooting on Jerome Long and Alante Jones as they deal drugs for Durham.

Durham learns of the link between the incidents when the police question him; he puts Mario into hiding and begins to suspect that Foreman is working against him.

They try to track Mario themselves as they feel partly responsible for Elliot's murder but the police beat them to Donut.

He has an answerphone message threatening him with obstruction of justice as one of the witnesses he interviewed gave him information that he should have passed to the police.

Strange tracks an employee of Foreman's to a gun store and observes him buying a weapon under false pretences.

Quinn leaves Devra unwatched to return to question the men about his missing girl but is again unsuccessful.

He again visits the group of men, this time taking his gun, he intimidates them into giving him the information he needs which he writes down.

[3][5] The Guardian pointed out the irony that the state is working to execute Granville Oliver against Washingtonians' consensus when so many other African American men die on the street.

[4] The New York Times compared the depiction of violence growing from smaller actions to the work of Richard Price.

[5] Pelecanos has described the book as an anti-detective novel because no case is solved by the private investigators and they are constantly a step behind the police.

[3][7] The New York Times commented that the blaming of some of the characters' behaviour on the absence of father figures may be an oversimplification.

[8] The novel follows directly on from Hell to Pay in terms of Strange gathering evidence for the defence of Granville Oliver.

[5][8] Minor characters from earlier novels in the series that appear include Lieutenant Lydell Blue, Oliver's associate Phillip Wood, Strange's protégé Lamar Williams, Quinn's girlfriend Sue and Strange's young football player Robert Gray.

[4] Pelecanos has commented that he deliberately interweaves characters from his novels to create a sense of a fictional universe that parallels the real world.