Nic

College student Joe Talbert has the modest goal of completing a writing assignment for an English class. His task is to interview a stranger and write a brief biography of the person. With deadlines looming, Joe heads to a nearby nursing home to find a willing subject. There he meets Carl Iverson, and soon nothing in Joe's life is ever the same. Carl is a dying Vietnam veteran-and a convicted murderer. With only a few months to live, he has been medically paroled to a nursing home after spending thirty years in prison for the crimes of rape and murder.

Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a city in its brawny postwar prime, is where Little Joe Regino and Russ Shorto build a local gambling empire on the earnings of factory workers for whom placing a bet - on a horse or pool game, pinball or Tip seal - is their best shot at the American dream. Decades later, Russell Shorto grew up knowing that his grandfather was a small-town mobster, but never thought to write about him, in keeping with an unspoken family vow of silence. Then a distant cousin prodded him: You gotta write about it.

Detective Jack Fitch is in a jam. After losing his partner, it’s all he can do to keep his spot as the top investigator. There’s a new killer in town and his work is just plain gruesome. He’s doing just fine, chipping away at the case. That is, until he’s assigned a new partner. Ellen Foster. A rookie investigator, Ellen Foster isn’t one to be easily swayed. She works like a cat on the prowl. Swift, merciless, and above all, without fear.