Detective Ruggiero Carlucci of Rocksburg, Pennsylvania, investigates the slaying of a baseball player, famous for his aggressive pitching style. Suspects include two ex-wives and a girlfriend, all of whom were at the receiving end of the player's aggressive style at home. By the author of Family Values.

"Crumbling, empty buildings, a real-estate infrastructure sputtering out, next-to-no tax base for the town and its schools, a population thrown to the mercies of the welfare state ... to many of Rocksburg's citizens, this was the bitter legacy of the mid-1980s. A brutal regimen of downsizing had shut down steel production and eliminated two-thirds of the factory's workforce - a policy enforced by steel magnate J. D. Lyons." "If Lyons accomplished...