Jack McEvoy is at the end of the line as a crime reporter. Forced to take a buy-out from the LA Times, he's got 30 days left on the job. His last assignment? Training his replacement, a low-cost reporter just out of J-school. But Jack has other plans for his exit. He is going to go out with a bang - a final story that will win the newspaper journalism's highest honor - a Pulitzer prize. Jack focuses on Alonzo Winslow, a 16-year-old drug dealer from the projects who has confessed to police that he brutally raped and strangled one of his crack clients. Jack convinces Alonzo's mother to co-operate with his investigation into the possibility of her son's innocence. But Jack's real intention is to use his access to report and write a story that explains how societal dysfunction and neglect created a 16-year-old killer.But as Jack delves into the story he soon realises that Alonzo's so-called confession is bogus, and Jack is soon off and running on the biggest story he's had since The Poet c