Kevin Corcoran is a rugged young Irish immigrant policeman trying to keep the peace in the historical Five Points neighborhood in 1860s New York City while searching for information on the disappearance of his wife and death of his daughter.

The daily lives of prisoners in Emerald City, an experimental unit of the Oswald Maximum Security Prison where ingroups – Muslims, Latinos, Italians, Aryans – stick close to their mutual friends and terrorizes their mutual enemies.