Three years ago, a child's death sent one innocent man to prison and blew open a vortex of corruption at the heart of Manhattan's lucrative construction industry. Joe Cole was that innocent man. A former Buildings Department inspector, the ex-con now lives a broken life, cut off from his wife and daughter and from the city he loves. But a woman's murder and the death of a young man rip open old wounds—plunging Joe and his former partner, a beautiful, hard-charging investigator, into the darkest corners of the city and into a desperate race to expose the secrets that help the powerful hide their crimes.