Somewhere in Israel Near the Jordan Border, 1973: On a desert road outside a small Israeli town, two Muslim families ride home in a battered van. The children joke and play. The adults argue about money, and Ali Mohammed drives nervously. The night is dark. Suddenly, the windshield of the van shatters. Conversation ceases abruptly as an automatic weapon peppers the careening vehicle, which turns on its side and skids noisily along the road. A lone Jewish man advances, carrying an automatic weapon.

There is a burst of gunfire and shouting and the advancing man goes down. Ali goes down. From behind the van, a small child runs crying to her murdered father. Looking up at another figure who stands in front of her, she cannot yet understand the power of the centuries-old hate she has inherited.

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Chicago, Illinois, 1995: Chicago police detective Abe Lieberman is reminded just how deep the roots of hate and revenge can go when the local temple to which he and his wife belong is vandalized. Suspicion quickly falls on both militant Jewish and Muslim groups who oppose the temple's moderate stance on Palestine. But it's also clear that local skinheads are involved, and that the rampage that led to the deaths of three young Muslims has only just begun.

Lieberman is surrounded by the endless brutality of the urban frontierfrom angry Arab, Israeli, and neo-Nazi youths on the one hand to ruthless Korean extortionists on the other. Defending his faith and his community, he soon discovers that forces beyond his control may tear apart a piece of his world even closer to home.