In his most original and compelling book yet, Andrew Vachss presents an electrifying tale of corruption in a devastated mill town. It is 1959–a moment in history when the clandestine, powerful forces that will shape America to the present day are about to collide.Walker Dett is a hired gun, known for using the most extreme measures to accomplish his missions. Royal Beaumont is the hillbilly boss who turned Locke City from a dying town into a thriving vice capital. But organized crime outsiders are moving in on Beaumont’s turf, so he reaches out for Dett in a high-risk move to maintain his power at all costs. Add a rival Irish political machine, a deeply entrenched neo-Nazi party, the nascent black power movement, turf-disputing juvenile gangs, a muck-raking journalist who doubles as a blackmailer, the FBI–a covert observer and occasional participant which may itself be under surveillance– and Locke City is about as stable as a nitroglycerin truck stalled on the railroad tracks.From the Trade Paperback edition.