Richard Price returns to the gritty urban landscape of his New York Times bestseller Clockers in a vibrant, gut-wrenching masterpiece of suspense--a novel that is as timely as recent headlines and as universal as our own worst nightmares.

    Dazed and bleeding, Brenda Martin stumbles into a city hospital and tells an astonishing story: first about the black man who hijacked her car. Then about her young son, who was asleep in the backseat. As the nation watches spellbound, frantic police desend on the housing projects, searching for a stolen chid, tearing apart a neighborhood that doesn't need an excuse to explode. And edgy young reporter hustles her way into the eye of the strom. A good cop stands at an impossible spot. And soon all the pain, hope, and madness of a heat-soaked city will come pouring out into the streets--because of a story that may be true, or may be the most horrifying lie of all.