Dazed and bleeding, Brenda Martin stumbles into a city hospital and tells a shocking story: a man has hijacked her car, and her young son is asleep in the back seat. Frantic police descend on the housing projects, searching for the stolen child and tearing apart a neighbourhood that doesn’t need an excuse to explode. Meanwhile, a young reporter hustles her way into the eye of the storm and a good cop is put in an impossible position. Soon all the pain, hope and madness of a heat-soaked city will come pouring out into the streets - because of a story that may be true, or may be the most horrifying lie of all…