From a foxhole on Guadalcanal, shared with former champ Barney Ross, to the glitzy underworld of Hollywood in the ’40s, Nate Heller fights his memories and “the outfit.” Something happened at the Canal, something Heller’s blocking out. What he can’t block, though, is the wound he received -- the million-dollar wound, the one that got him home. Back in the States, and back in Chicago, he becomes involved once again with Frank Nitti during the gang boss’s last violent days and with the gangland attempts to take over the movie unions. The home front is every bit as violent as the war-torn Pacific, and even the solace of fan-dancer Sally Rand can do nothing to ease Heller, who is haunted by the death of a friend in Guadalcanal and surrounded by the mayhem of gangland murders.

Narrator Yuri Rasovsky has garnered numerous awards for his work in audio, including two Peabodys, two Audie Awards, and a Grammy. His uncle, the late Barney Ross, né Barnet Rasofsky, was lightweight and welterweight Champion of the World, a war hero, a crusader against drug abuse, and best friend of private eye Nate Heller.