Washington, D.C.: Bartender and occasional detective Nick Stefanos is at the end of his rope and is really just living for the next drink. One evening, while hopelessly drunk on a park bench by the Anacostia River, he becomes an unwilling witness to the murder of teenager Calvin Jeter. He pulls himself together, as the Metropolitan Police seem not particularly interested in the case, viewing the victim as just another typical casualty of Washington's gang violence. But Nick knows that gangs don't use silencers—along with private investigator Jack LaDuke, he attempts to catch the killers and soon finds himself in a swamp of drugs and sexual exploitation: a journey into the darkness of the human soul and through the darkest shadows of the American capital begins...