A favour to an old friend means a return to the streets of South Chicago for VI Warshawski. But the neighbourhood where she grew up is now a dangerous, depressed place that reeks of bad memories. And the high school basketball team she has come to coach is a group of gang-bangers, fundamentalists and teenage moms.

The mother of one of the girls asks VI to look into claims of sabotage at the flag-making factory where she works. If it closes, the only other employer is By-Smart, a behemoth superstore that discounts its wages as heavily as its wares. But VI has barely agreed to help when the factory blows up.

As VI investigates she finds herself confronting the powerful family who own By-Smart. Founder William 'Buffalo Bill' Bysen is a difficult old man, at odds with both VI and his sons. And when his favoured grandson, Billy, runs away with one of her basketball players, VI is squeezed between the needs of two very different families, as she tries to find the errant teenagers and track down a particularly cruel murderer.