Mick Axbrewder has enough problems to kill ten lesser men. He's a recovering alcoholic. He's healing -- painfully and slowly -- from a gunshot wound that nearly killed him. His old partner and lover, Ginny, seems to want as little to do with him as possible.

Years ago, he and Ginny worked side-by-side. But that was before he accidentally shot and killed a cop. While drunk. A cop who happened to be his brother.

Now Axbrewder -- "Brew" to his friends -- is trying to make his way back to self-respect. It isn't easy. It doesn't help that Ginny has moved the pair of them to the sprawling, heartless Sunbelt city of Carner, where he can't get the "feel" of the streets. At least he has work, handling security for the area's booming martial arts industry, a world of modern commercial competition and ancient resentments. A world with hidden stakes, over which someone is evidently willing to kill.

But Brew's real job isn't the one for which he's been hired. His real job is regaining his own self-respect.