Big money, greed, drugs, and blackmail set off an insidious chain of events in this hard-hitting novel that takes its game off the court and into the belly of the professional basketball scene in Portland, Oregon. High on cocaine and power at a private bash, the Portland team's notorious forward, LaPrince Wheatley, misuses both to bed an underage groupie, a sixteen-year-old white girl known among the players as Little Bang. What LaPrince doesn't know is that he and Little Bang are being videotaped by the host. Throw into play Tommy Mason, the seedy reporter who discovers the illicit tape, and you have the makings of a bad situation that page by fast-paced page gets successively worse. If Mason as a blackmailer gets in over his head, he's not alone. Swept into the action, too, are LaPrince's dubious agent, his resentful half brother who's fresh out of the joint, a scary homeboy named Titan, the girl, her racist father, and Mason's estranged wife. The fouls are flagrant, and even the DA Max Travis and his loyal investigator find themselves breaking a few laws. By the time the uncompromising, bleeding-heart public defender, Paige Prescott, solves the murder at the heart of this increasingly shocking case, this impressive debut novel delivers plenty of punch, suspense, and surprise.