Matthew Scudder is finally leading a comfortable life. He's sober, married, and the state just gave him a private investigator's license. Then he signs up to help his closest and most unlikely friend, larger-than-life Hell's Kitchen hoodlum Mick Ballou. Soon Scudder discovers he's living in a world where the past is a minefield, the present a war zone—and that he's not so respectable after all.