An ex-cop gets sucked back into an evil world he thought he'd left behind';Vealshank' Tani's life ends in an abandoned train station. The killers don't just torture Tani, they skin him and hang him from a steal beam as a treat for the carrion eaters. This grisly scene wouldn't matter to Gilrein, a cabbie who knows to mind his own business, except that he spent the evening as Tani's chauffeur. Whether he knows anything or not, his life is now a liability to August Kroger, kingpin and rare-book addictand enemies of Kroger do not live long.Before he drove a Checker, Gilrein was a cop, with a life built around the force. His wife wore a badge as well, serving valiantly until the day an explosion took her life and forced Gilrein to abandon their profession. Sensing a connection between Tani's death and his wife's, Gilrein reopens the case, hoping to expose the conspiracy that ended her lifebefore it claims his too.