Rayfield "Liftoff" Lifton was a University of Miami basketball star everybody predicted would be a first-round draft pick. But a knee injury at the end of his senior year wrecked his dream to play pro basketball so he decided to pursue a career in the law. Now, after a dozen years as a state prosecutor in a dead-end job, he finally gets a second chance at glory when he takes on what could turn out to be a high-profile case against a white-supremacist group under a controversial new hate-crimes law. If all goes according to plan, he just might become Florida's first black State Attorney, and fame and fortune once again would be within his grasp. But then again, things hardly ever go according to plan for Rayfield "Liftoff" Lifton.