For nine days in October of 1990, two Boston homicide detectives, Ketchum and Cobb, investigate the brutal murder of a South Boston man in his living room. For each, the case knifes through the middle of their lives. With Cobb, it's heavy weather and high seas because he's grieving over his son's suicide from four years ago. With Ketchum, it's a chance at some sunshine - he thinks he's found the love of his life, but his heart hesitates. Will she really be attracted to a guy like me, he wonders? As they encounter characters in a South Boston bar who have tenuous connections to the dark side of Boston, they lighten the demands of the job through banter and philosophically posit important questions such as why, with three million people, you can't get a decent pizza in Chicago? Or more importantly, why are there no cheerleaders in baseball?