A sadistic serial killer is on the loose in the once idyllic community of Eden Beach. In the summer of 1973, Michael Reese and his friends are looking forward to their senior year of high school until two dead bodies are found on the lawn of their favorite neighborhood park. Brothers, Phillip and Johnny Mulu, have been murdered and their friends, a newly formed but vicious gang born in the Oakwood Housing Projects, go on the rampage, looking for justice. Anybody who knew the two brothers said the murders had to have something to do with gangs since Johnny, known as the Cookie Monster, had been running with one gang or another since junior high. They figured Phillip the more level headed of the two was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But when Mike's little sister, Maddie, overhears a conversation hinting that Phillip, the ladies' man, may have had a sugar mama, it changes the face of the game. Enemies of the two brothers start to disappear or turn up dead and, as the bodies pile up, Mike and his two best friends find themselves on opposite sides of the war. When Jesse Jordan and Terrence "T-Money" Mitchell join the Oaktown Boys they abandon their friendship with Mike which began way back in grade school. Even with his other friends, new father Manny Ortega, gentle giant Sonny Mulu or spoiled, obnoxious football teammate Derek Daniels, Mike feels lost and alone without the other two. Because all of the murder victims are drug dealers, gang members or both, people are quick to blame the Oaktown Boys and their allies while others start to believe the killer is a vigilante, waging his own war against the scourge that has tainted their little piece of heaven. Recently discharged Vietnam vet, Detective Paul Driscoll is assigned to the case. After receiving an anonymous tip about a secret meeting at a waterfront bar that doubles as a bookmaking shack, Driscoll has reason to believe that the murderer is a student at John F. Kennedy High. As he digs deepe