Originally published: New York : William Morrow, 2001.

Reluctantly, Sean Devine confronts the world of violence and pain when his childhood friend's daughter is murdered and the investigation brings him face to face with a vigilante killer and a man with a dangerous secret. When they were children, Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus, and Dave Boyle were friends. But then a strange car drove up their street. One boy got in the car, two did not, and something terrible happened, something that ended their friendship and changed the boys forever. Twenty five years later, Sean is a homicide detective. Jimmy is an ex con, and Dave is trying to hold his marriage together and keep his demons at bay, demons that urge him to do horrific things. When Jimmy's daughter is murdered, Sean is assigned to the case. His investigation brings him into conflict with Jimmy, who finds his old criminal impulses tempt him to solve the crime with brutal justice. And then there is Dave, who came home the night Jimmy's daughter died covered in someone else's blood. While Sean attempts to use the law to return peace and order to the neighborhood, Jimmy finds his need for vengeance pushing him ever closer to a moral abyss from which he won't be able to return. When Jimmy Marcus's daughter is found dead, his childhood friend Sean Devine is assigned the case. Sean's personal life begins to unravel as his investigation takes him back into a world of violence and pain he thought he'd left behind.

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