Nash Morgan, the police chief in the northern Virginia town of Knockemout, is accustomed to being shadowed by FBI special agents, most prominently Marshal Nolan Graham. Several months earlier, he was shot and left for dead by members of a car theft ring, part of a crime family operation centered in Washington, DC. Nash and the FBI want to find out who shot him and to break up the crime ring. They theorize that the local operation is part of a power play driven by Duncan Hugo, whose father Anthony is the head of the crime family.

Nash struggles psychologically and physically after the shooting. He cannot remember enough of the event to help agents; plus, the shooting left him with nearly constant pain in his legs. He has returned to his job, but wrestles with a sense of vulnerability and an inability to trust anyone. He describes himself as a “walking corpse” (12). He stays away even from his older brother Knox, who runs the town’s most popular bar and is in the final stages of planning his wedding to Naomi. Naomi’s twin sister Tina was Duncan Hugo’s girlfriend; Tina is now serving time for her part in the car theft ring.