George Rickson's life is entwined with those who live in Papetown, a group of tarpaper shacks. He takes his own share of physical and emotional hard knocks, both winning and losing. People forced to live in squalor, with little to hope for, love, hate, fight, cheat, steal and extract harsh penalties under adverse conditions. Things become even tougher for Papertown residents when a mysterious killer begins taking a bloody toll. They are not the first killings in Papertown and the surrounding area. People whose only satisfaction can come from grinding their tormentors even deeper into the dirt they came from, deal with theft, rape and murder on their own terms.