“Ever see a dead body, Willie?”“Sure, sure, I have.”“And you think you’re ready for this?”With the grisly discovery of a murdered young woman, Willie Schaefer enters the world of the NYPD detective, finding it a world all too closely tied to the neighborhood gangsters of his Queens boyhood. A special assignment leads him through a maze of drugs, intrigue, and lies, loyalties betrayed and passions inflamed, from New York to Vera Cruz, Mexico, and back again. How high up does the corruption go? Whom can he trust?