John Wells, an old-school crime reporter on the New York Star, comes into conflict with his new boss Robert and when news of a teen suicide breaks, Wells is posted upstate off the crime beat. Gritting his teeth, he sets to work, but discovers that in Grant County, suicide may in fact be murder.

A newspaperman investigates a war correspondent's hotel room murderAs snow falls on Manhattan, three old colleagues warm themselves in the wood-paneled confines of the Midtown Press Club. Two are editors at highbrow New York publications; the other is Timothy Colt, a daring war correspondent whose face is not famous but whose byline is known the world over. New York Star crime reporter John Wells listens as they rehash old times, then follows Colt back to his room to drink some more. He wakes hung over, just in time to see Colt murdered. After a struggle with Wells draws the attention of hotel security, the assassin flings himself out the window. To unmask Colt's killer, Wells will have to reach deep into his fellow reporter's past—for the root of this murder lies in a long-forgotten love, and an atrocious war too terrible to be remembered.

A tip from a dying cop puts a reporter on a long-closed murder caseEasy E.J. McMahon rests six feet underneath the playground at an elementary school in Little Italy. A one-time steakhouse owner with a gambling problem, his troubles started when a struggle broke out for control of a mob family, and E.J. backed the wrong man. E.J. fled to the airport, planning to hop a plane to Wyoming, but was met at the gate by two heavies with badges. As they dragged him out of the airport, he wailed that the men were not real cops. They put him under the cement while he was still breathing. Fifteen years later, newspaperman John Wells gets a call from a dying cop who wants to make a confession. Easy E.J. was wrong: They were cops, working on the mob payroll. Wells goes after the dead cop's partner, chasing a story so good that it might be worth getting buried alive.