At the end of the 1976 football season, more than forty Harvard athletes went to Bostons Combat Zone to celebrate. In the citys adult entertainment district, drugs and prostitution ran rampant, violent crime was commonplace, and corrupt police turned the other way. At the end of the night, Italian American star athlete Andy Puopolo, raised in the citys North End, was murdered in a stabbing. Three African American men were accused of the crime. His murder made national news and led to the eventual demise of the citys red-light district. Starting with this brutal murder, The Combat Zone tells the story of the Puopolo familys struggle with both a devastating loss and a criminal justice system that produced two trials with opposing verdicts, all within the context of a racially divided Boston. Brogan traces the contentious relationship between Bostons segregated neighborhoods during the busing crisis; shines a light on a court system that allowed lawyers to strike potential jurors based purely on their racial or ethnic identity; and lays bare the deep-seated corruption within the police department and throughout the Combat Zone. What emerges is a fascinating snapshot of the city at a transitional moment in its recent past.About author(s):JAN BROGAN is a journalist and novelist living in Boston. A former staff writer for the Providence Journal and the Worcester Telegram, her freelance work has appeared in the Boston Globe, Boston magazine, Ladies Home Journal, and Forbes.