Shorty Benton is driving down the East Coast after he recently quit both his jobs to start a new life. Along the way he recalls searching for acceptance in his past while dealing with loss and heartbreak. At the age of four, Shorty lost his mother to an aneurysm. Shortly after, his father marries Cora Pontini, who at first glance is a sweet, loving woman. While his father grieves the sudden death of his wife, what follows is twelve years of physical and mental torment for Shorty at the hands of Cora, until she dies of brain cancer. Shorty loses himself for a decade, in his new found freedom...

When a woman's body is found by the train station in Donald Junction, Detective James "Vin" Murdock is plunged into a death investigation that reveals a connection to a case that has haunted him his entire career. Together with his rookie partner, they uncover the dark secrets of the city's seedy underbelly involving a grimy mechanic, a sleazy bank manager, and a prominent city Councilman. What Vin stumbles upon is something he is never prepared for. In the middle of discovering grisly illegal business deeds happening in his City of Niagara Falls, it causes Murdock to lose faith in humanity...