Los Angeles, 1958. Killings, beatings, bribes, shakedowns–it’s standard procedure for Lieutenant Dave Klein, LAPD. He’s a slumlord, a bagman, an enforcer–a power in his own small corner of hell. Then the Feds announce a full-out investigation into local police corruption, and everything goes haywire.

Klein’s been hung out as bait, “a bad cop to draw the heat,” and the heat’s coming from all sides: from local politicians, from LAPD brass, from racketeers and drug kingpins–all of them hell-bent on keeping their own secrets hidden. For Klein, “forty-two and going on dead,” it’s dues time.

Klein tells his own story–his voice clipped, sharp, often as brutal as the events he’s describing–taking us with him on a journey through a world shaped by monstrous ambition, avarice, and perversion. It’s a world he created, but now he’ll do anything to get out of it alive.