When his brother is murdered, Jason Palmer finds himself protecting his eight-year-old nephew from two killers with a mysterious agenda, while his Chicago South Side neighborhood erupts in a bloodbath of gang warfare and high-level political corruption.

Ten-year-old Danny is bored and lonely when he hops on the back of the exciting and somewhat scary tiger that offers him a ride, but he soon discovers that it's easier to get on the tiger than it is to get off.

Branded a troublemaker due to his anger over everything from being bullied to his sister's death a year before, Marcus begins to control himself and cope with his problems at home and at his inner-city school when an unlikely mentor teaches him to play chess.