Los Angeles, 1958: a city on the make. A boomtown at the edge of a new era ripe for plunder.

Lieutenant Dave Klein: in turn a lawyer, bagman, slum landlord, mob killer. Klein stands at the centre of a complex web of plots where violence and death will intersect, 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.