The seedy underworld of drugs and violence has infiltrated Lakewood High, and seventeen-year-old Jesse Decruz becomes their unlikely hero. The product of a broken home, Jesse suffers severe abuse at the hands of his alcoholic father, and this changes him forever. Now fuelled by a desire to make a difference and stop the -cycle of violence in his community, Jesse will do whatever it takes to restore order to his school and his life-even if it means forging an alliance with the man who has abused him.

Set in the 1980s in the gritty government projects of Toronto's Regent Park, Sunrise at Dusk is a story about the victory of good over evil and having faith that the sun can rise even as darkness falls.