Set in the union halls, taverns, and half built skyscrapers of midtown Manhattan and in the gritty uptown neighborhood of Inwood, The Rackets depicts every shade of New York Irish - as well as Italian mobsters, Russian killers, and a gun-running Gulf War veteran on disability.

Our hero is Jimmy Dolan, who, after putting himself through college by working as a day laborer, goes to work for a smug Republican mayor. When he tries to settle an old dispute with his fists at a Gracie Mansion breakfast meeting, he finds himself out of a job - and sought out by Frankie Keefe, the corrupt union boss he knocked to the carpet. Jimmy's father Mike, a saintly widower, is running for president of the construction worker's union, but when he is brutally murdered, Jimmy has to decide whether to risk his life - and that of his girlfriend Tara, a bold New York City policewoman - in order to defend his father's honor and the interests of the rank and file.