Erica Donato is researching the 1930s when Brownsville, New York, was the home of the notorious organized criminals the newspapers called Murder Inc. Two young women are found murdered. One of them, Savanna, had helped Erica at the local library. Erica digs deeper than necessary into her research and encounters an apparent derelict white man, a vengeful rejected girlfriend, the role of boxing as a way out of poverty, and fading evidence of long-ago crimes.