The Fowlers are a normal family in Maine. Matt is the town doctor and loves to fish, his wife, Ruth, is the school's choir leader, and their son, Frank, is home from his first year of college. Frank is in love with Natalie, a young mother who isn't quite divorced yet from her ex-husband, Richard Strout, whose family runs the local cannery. It makes Richard's blood run cold to see his wife running around with another man. And soon, an unthinkable tragedy happens that will tear the Fowlers...

Porter is bad, but his neighbours are worse. Street-wise and tough, an ex-marine, he is betrayed by a one-time partner, and shot in the back by his junkie wife. He survives and returns, looking to recover his share from the robbery of an Asian crime gang. The money has passed into the hands of "the Outfit", a slick gangster organisation that runs the city. He has to make his way through a world populated by heroin dealers, prostitutes, sado-masochists, gunmen and crooked cops, a place where...