Cisco Sanchez is the self-proclaimed "best detective in New York " - better even than Brian McKenna, whom Cisco considers the luckiest detective. Like McKenna, Cisco solves cases while occasionally driving his NYPD bosses crazy. Then he meets his match in Sue Hsu, an airline stewardess who caught Cisco's eye after providing evidence in a murder investigation. To everyone's amazement, the two get engaged and plan to marry.But while celebrating their future over dinner in Toronto's Chinatown, Sue is murdered by members of the street gang Born to Kill. Cisco vows to avenge her death and throws himself into the case of his life. Pursuing one of the killers, he begins to uncover the dangerous underworld of gangs in the two Chinatowns of Toronto and New York. A history emerges of kidnapping, extortion, drug smuggling, contract killing, and the transport of human cargo between China and North America - a criminal network more powerful than the Mafia and virtually unknown to all but the silent businessmen and frightened workers in Asian communities.