When four LAPD officers are acquitted after the savage beating of Rodney King, Los Angeles is ablaze, law and order are swept away. But despite grave danger, detectives like Harry Bosch are still stubbornly trying to do their job.

So when Bosch finds the body of a journalist in an alley, he is forced to hand the case over to the Riot Crimes Task Force, knowing that it will never be solved.

But twenty years later, new evidence confirms her death was not a case of random violence. This time Bosch won't let the killer escape - even if it means stepping back into the darkest days of the city he loves.