Chicago, May 30, 1956: On a quiet corner in a working-class immigrant neighborhood, a heavy suitcase is discovered on the sidewalk late at night. Inside is the body of a young boy, naked and hacked into pieces.
Two hard-drinking Chicago detectives are assigned to the case: Hank Purcell, who still has flashbacks ten years after the Battle of the Bulge, and his partner Marvin Bondarowicz, a wise-cracking Jewish cop who loves trouble as much as he loves booze. Their investigation takes them through the dark streets of Chicago in search of an even darker secret—as more and more suitcases turn up.
John Guzlowski’s Polish parents met in a Nazi slave-labor camp, and he was born a Displaced Person. Growing up in Chicago’s “Murdertown”, he saw his friends beaten, their houses burned, their parents killed in the street. An acclaimed teacher and poet, Guzlowski remembers those who survived the war, and the ones who didn’t survive Chicago.
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