Detective Mike Palazzola of Detroit’s Third Precinct is good at catching the bad guys, especially those who commit brutal, heinous crimes. But after several mishandled criminal cases, he becomes increasingly frustrated with the judicial system and its prosecutors. The alleged murderers he worked so hard to capture and indict are either dismissed on a legal technicality, exonerated, or given lenient sentences by the court system.

While having dinner with a friend at Detroit’s Roma Café, he stumbles upon a secret gathering of members who have been passing out their own brand of justice since 1927…members who always wear black bowler hats.

The Malizia Society of Detroit or “The Archangels” as they like to call themselves, have their own stable of executioners. They meet, decide, and pass out their own private brand of justice against those malicious criminals whom the judicial system can no longer indict. He later learns that one of the county prosecutors, Kevin Scanlon, is a member of this secret society.

As Detective Palazzola and his reporter friend, Justine Cahill begin to investigate these ‘Black Bowler Hat’ murders, the FBI steps in. They now have a society member who has become a government informant, and the Feds are confident that they can get an indictment against this secret society. They ask the cops and the media to back off, not wanting anyone to jeopardize their investigation.

But the Archangels are now out of control, and are eliminating any disgruntled society members, lawyers, and even reporters who threaten to make public and expose their secret manifesto of ‘mortal redemption’.

Victims are now showing up dead, by strangulation or by self-inflicted ‘suicide’. Palazzola knows exactly who these killers are, but there isn’t anything he can do.

And with every Archangels murder, at every crime scene…there lays a black, bowler hat.