The year is 1988 and reporter Matt Brady of The Bronx Ledger is trying hard to get out of both his native borough and the dead-end job he's stuck in, writing for a weekly newspaper. When he's sent to cover what he thinks will be just another fatal shooting in the murder-plagued city, he's as surprised as the detectives on the scene to find out he knows the corpse: Danny McDuff, an enigmatic local legend turned career criminal.
Desperately looking for a story that will be his ticket out and help him break free from the clutches of his family, friends, and neighborhood ties, Matt reaches out to the people he grew up with—many of whom chose the path of either cop or criminal—forever bound by their shared pasts. As Matt digs beyond what the police are telling him about the murder, he discovers that what seemed like the story that could finally get him out of the Bronx only sucks him in deeper and deeper...until his own life is on the line.