Wendy Rud­er­man and Bar­bara Lak­er, two Philadel­phia Dai­ly News reporters, chron­i­cle their fun­ny and often fright­en­ing jour­ney on Philly€s grimmest streets to take on an elite, all-male nar­cotics squad and uncov­er a hor­ri­fy­ing web of cor­rup­tion and lies. Their work ulti­mate­ly won them a Pulitzer Prize as the first female inves­tiga­tive team to win in the Inves­tiga­tive Report­ing category. 

Rich with humor and detail, Bar­bara and Wendy’s Jew­ish her­itage is woven into the sto­ry. The authors are two dri­ven, neu­rot­ic, sub­ur­ban moms who grew up in homes rife with a Jew­ish work eth­ic. Wendy’s dad inspired her to dream big and taught her that noth­ing she did would ever be mediocre — all the while sneak­ing his fam­i­ly into syn­a­gogue on the High Holy Days; Bar­bara’s young life was shaped by her Ortho­dox Jew­ish boot­leg­ger grand­moth­er, who stopped at noth­ing to get her son into the New York Uni­ver­si­ty School of Med­i­cine when the Jew­ish quo­ta was filled.