It's 1895, and the face of Manhattan is rapidly changing. From the electric-lit elegance of Delmonico's Restaurant and Broadway to a netherworld of stifling immigrant tenements, bordellos, and rotgut whiskey, the city simmers in the summer heat. Graft is everywhere - and most of all at 300 Mulberry Street, Metropolitan Police Headquarters, where the men in blue mingle with crooks and corrupt lawyers of every stripe.

Here young police detective John "Dutch" Tonneman observes firsthand the behind-the-scenes backstabbing between top brass and would-be reformers. But it's a suspicious waterfront blaze and a union rally turned violent that threaten to tear the city apart at the seams.

Tonneman arrives on the scene just in time to save a pretty, vivacious young photographer from a vicious assault. Esther Breslau is a lovely Polish Jewish immigrant who worked her way from the sweatshops to a job as a photographer with a crusading newspaper reporter. But when the reporter turns up murdered and Esther's photographic plates are smashed, it's obvious that Esther's pictures were something someone wanted very badly indeed.

And now the only living eyewitness to what Esther saw through her camera lens is Esther herself. As the sweltering city reaches the boiling point and a murderer stalks the cobblestoned streets, it's up to Detective Tonneman and Esther to unravel a dangerous mystery whose roots are buried deep in the sordid underbelly of Manhattan - but whose branches may reach to the heights of political power.