Spenser is forced by loyalty into an alien world where violence is a way of life and outsiders enter at a lethal risk. When Spenser's cohort Hawk is hired by the tenants of a gang-plagued Boston housing project know as "Double Deuce," he enlists his friend's aid. A teenage girl and her infant daughter have been gunned down. Though the act at first appears to be an accidental drive-by shooting, it soon becomes clear that it was premeditated murder.