Eight years ago, Matthew Scudder quit his police job after accidentally shooting an innocent bystander while trying to prevent a robbery. In the meantime, he earns a living working as a private detective, has stopped drinking and lives a reclusive life. When Scudder is recruited by the drug dealer Kenny to hunt down the men who kidnapped and brutally murdered his wife, the case leads him into New York’s underground world. Gradually it becomes apparent that the kidnapping wasn’t an isolated incident, but rather one in a whole series of extremely violent crimes – all of which ended deadly.

In the search for justice, Scudder finds himself operating just outside the law while the perpetrators are already targeting their next victim …