Neurotic Philadelphia homicide detective Benny Steel lives in his comfort zone: ordinary, routine, cynical, and lonely. Then a chain of events-a crime wave ripping through the city in the middle of a heat wave, a no-evidence case assigned to him that could ignite a drug war, and being paired up with a new detective in training, Marisa Tulli-presses Steel into a search for a killer whose identity will shock him...and forces him into a personal quest that causes him to question just how precious life really is.