John Coglin, a 5 year veteran of the NYPD, sees a gang of teens beating a man and although he is off-duty he gives chase through an empty elevated train station. Torrential rain has caused dangerous footing and John falls from the station roof onto the concrete below landing on his gun. The young thug begins to drag John towards the tracks as they both hear a train nearing the station but John is able to free his gun and fire a shot into the gangster's leg; unfortunately this causes the thug to fall into the oncoming train, killing him instantly. John knows he is not at fault but he suddenly finds himself indicted for murder when a supposed eyewitness states that John taunted the helpless young man before shooting him and throwing him from the station platform.

Had this been the main focus of the book I might have enjoyed it much more but the author took the story in a completely different direction. Fearing that he will be convicted John hooks up with his Irish ex-IRA militant uncle and his gang of hoodlums who are planning to stage a jewelry heist at Rockefeller Center. The robbery goes horribly wrong and John is now being chased by his former police cronies. Even this is fairly exciting, although it seemed extremely out of character, but the author's constant use of the "F" word, and I do not exaggerate 'constant', made the whole thing a big mess in my eyes. A blurb on the book's jacket compares Ledwidge to Connelly and Lehane and that is the biggest insult that could be levied at two accomplished authors.
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