New York is hell. Daughters are murder.

1.00 am on a steamy summer night. A grubby police office in downtown NYC. Two cops and two crooks battle with wits and fists to uncover the truth about a murder. Sean is back from Vietnam and unable to find his way. Jimmy has the look of a choir boy, but the attitude of a punk. Kelly’s daughter is on the end of the phone with a gun to her temple. Jack can’t get through the shift without a fix.
   
‘Okay. I’m gonna beat you up a little bit now because that’s going to make me feel better there, and then we can get back to this nice talk.’
   
In Vietnam America is locked in a war she shouldn’t have started. Today history replays in the Middle East. Same talk, same struggle and morality’s still the victim.

Review

If the play survives, as it does in Dominic Hill's highly watchable production, it is as a ritualistic demonstration of the fallibility of justice…Babe's play is utterly gripping as an exaggerated police procedural … Michael Billington, Guardian