The author, a newspaper reporter, received unlimited access to the city's homicide unit and followed one shift of homicide detectives throughout 1988. The three detectives profiled in detail are Donald Worden, a longtime investigator; Harry Edgerton, a black detective in a mostly white unit; and Tom Pellegrini, a rookie. Written in chronological order, the descriptions cover the observations of experiences and interactions at crime scenes, hospital emergency rooms, interrogations, autopsies, and other settings, focusing on the roles and attitudes of police, laboratory technicians, prosecutors, judges, elected officials, government workers, victims, offenders, and witnesses. During that year, Baltimore recorded 234 murders. (Publisher summary modified)