"Parker pretty much defies category altogether in this deeply felt and intimately told memory tale, which takes place during the historic baseball season of 1947...Fusing this chapter of sports history with a hard-boiled gangster plot and haunting recollections of his own Boston boyhood, Parker fashions a hugely entertaining fiction."--The New York Times

1947: Jackie Robinson breaks major-league baseball's color barrier--and changes the world. The event also changes the life of Joseph Burke, veteran of World War II and Robinson's bodyguard--because under the media spotlight, hard truths are easier than ever to see, and harder to escape. And some can prove fatal.