Lorenzo, Michael, John and Tommy shared everything– the laughter and the bruises of an impoverished childhood on New York’s violent West Side. Until one of their pranks misfired and they were sent to a reformatory school. Twelve months of systematic mental, physical and sexual abuse left the boys transformed for ever. Eleven years later, one of them had become a journalist, one a lawyer – and the other two killers for the mob. In a chance encounter they came face to face with one of their torturers and shot him dead in front of several witnesses. The trial that followed brought the four friends together again in one last, audacious stand – and a courtroom climax as gripping as any John Grisham novel.