Chicago patrolman Jack Kelly comes on duty one cold December evening and begins muddling through the same old boring routine of shaking doorknobs and peering into the dim interiors of businesses. But monotony suddenly transforms to much more unpleasant when he stumbles upon the body of small-time hustler Myron Howard. The young cop finds himself neck-deep in an investigation that leads him on a wild chase through dirty Chicago politics straight to the trail of a killer. What should have been a simple case of murder deepens into a mire of graft and blackmail as Kelly becomes immersed in a political mystery that escalates all the way to Washington, DC. As the body count rises, Kelly soon realizes that those who know too much are the ones being assassinated at close range. It is up to Kelly to figure out what the victims could have known that was so deadly so threatening that a killer will stop at nothing to ensure the truth is never revealed. In this hard-boiled 1930s mystery, Jack Kelly knows that crime is solved the hard way if it is ever solved at all but even so he will stop at nothing to find a murderer bent on revenge.