The North Precinct of Portland, Oregon, is home to two kinds of cops: sergeants and lieutenants who've screwed up. somewhere else, and patrolmen who thrive on the action on the Avenue. Officer Hanson is the second kind, a veteran who has traded his Bronze Star for a badge. War is what Hanson knows, and in this battle for Portland's meanest streets, he's fighting not so much for the law as for his own code of justice.
Hanson is a man who seems to fear nothing-except his own memories. And it is his past that could destroy him now: An enemy in the department is determined to bring him down by digging into his war record and resurrecting the darkest agonies of that nightmare time. And when another piece of his past surfaces, Hanson risks his career, his sanity, even his life, for honor.