Butch Pratt and Ed Swiger meet as freshmen at an idyllic college campus in western Pennsylvania. Butch is a product of the steel mills outside Pittsburgh, Ed the scion of a political family in Ohio. They're fast friends, fraternity brothers, and ultimately college roommates. Both are on the way to postgraduate studies and glowing careers. But a botched prank against their own fraternity suddenly puts the law on their tails. And with their futures at stake, one of them decides that success is worth killing for.