Pelecanos was a writer for the stuff-white-people-like drama The Wire, a fact the publishers hammer home by using an eerily similar graphic design style to the one used to promote the show. Beyond this lies the well-crafted, slow-build story of a reformed juvenile delinquent unwittingly dragged back into a violent criminal world and his relationship with his exasperated and sometimes distant father, grappling with guilt for letting his son go down for his teenage mistakes.