Julian Keller, at the ripe old age of twenty-three, never managed to excel at anything. He’d been defiant as a child, rebellious as a teen, mischievous as a young adult—not to mention good-for-absolutely-f**king-nothing, as his alcoholic mother never tired of reminding him throughout his early years—and is now permanently broke while working as a small-time photo journalist.After stumbling on an unexpected opportunity amidst the Nicaraguan civil war in 1978, Julian rises to become one of America’s most influential smugglers of that new and harmless plaything for the hip and wealthy called ‘cocaine,’ which he proceeds to fly in from Bolivia. However, buying private planes and LA beachfront mansions with the kind of ease with which he’d not so long ago bought chewing gum turns stale once he begins to learn about the inner city crises that his ultimately not-so-harmless merchandise unleashes all over the United States. Meanwhile, LAPD detective Eric Welsh—whose mother, an English immigrant and self-made millionaire, was murdered in Los Angeles when he was ten—emerges from his bleak subsistence as a homicidal vigilante hunting violent sex offenders when he takes in Sonia, a deeply traumatized twelve-year-old Nicaraguan refugee. While Eric rediscovers life beyond the ambit of vicarious revenge, he bonds with Sonia, watches her grow up and thrive, and is in awe of the indomitable strength with which she won’t allow to be defined by what she’s suffered through. When he finds out that the most prolific smuggler of cocaine he’s ever come across resides right up the street from him in Malibu, Eric gets entangled in a cobweb of red tape as dubious U.S. State Department operatives get in his way.