In Philadelphia--already suffering among the country's worst murder rates--homicide is at an all-time high. With each violent crime, tension builds between the police department, the mayor's office, and the Citizens Oversight Committee. The most vocal activist, reformed drug dealer Reverend Josiah Cross, places the blame, and with it a target, squarely on the back of twenty-seven-year-old homicide sergeant Matt Payne. Now Payne must navigate death threats and misdirected public outrage to follow a strange pattern of seemingly unrelated killings. If he can't find his way through, it could spell an end to his reputation, his work--and maybe even his life.