An old-style gangster novel, it recounts the story of Dillon, who once carried a gun for Boss Nelson. When Nelson met his end, Dillon went underground, turning up later in small-town, Platsville, fixing boxing matches and bent upon setting up his own gang. A year later, he becomes a Kansas city boss, with a live-in mistress, hard-faced Myra Hogan. But ruthlessness and blind ambition makes him commit more murders and things soon go out of control, forcing him to take refuge in a farmer's shack, in a remote farmhouse. But men like Dillon just can't keep out of trouble and pretty soon, his roving eyes fall on Chrissie, the retarded daughter of the farmer...