Why would you kill your neighbour?

Through the gripping story of one particular murder - of an eighteen-year-old boy named Bryant Tennelle, gunned down one evening in spring for no apparent reason - and of its investigation by a brilliant, ferociously driven detective - a blond, surfer-turned-cop named John Skaggs - it reveals the true origins of such violence, explodes the myths surrounding policing and race and shows that the only way to reverse the cycle of violence is with justice.