Ishmael "Mail Man" Phillips won the jackpot when the devil was handing out bad parents. His father is founding member of the Ghost Town Grifters, has been on death row since the 70s. His mother Jinx is like a black widow, running drugs, guns and prostitution out of their house. When his mother kills a corrupt Sheriff's Deputy she was sleeping with, she frames her 12 year old son. Sending him away to juvenile detention until he is 24 years old. Coming home Ishmael is now a hardened criminal with nothing. Waiting for him is the neighborhood gang his father started, his little brother recently shot by a rival gang. Their mother is now more powerful and as cold hearted as ever. Running the neighborhood with an iron fist as its crime lord. She will do any thing to silence rumors she is a confidential informant. The pressure intensifies as his father's lawyer is murdered on the eve of exonorating evidence being introduced to overturn the death sentence. This sets a paniced clock in motion as vengeful personalities from both sides of the law try to end any hope his family has at a quiet life away from the turmoil of a city cannibalizing its self with dirty cops and militarized gangs. Based on the parable of "How can you do right when the world is wrong?" Set in fictional Bohemia California in the early 1990s that is a stand in for Venice and Sepulveda is real world Santa Monica.