In 1938, the American government and religious institutions used the faulty science of eugenics to forcibly sterilize those deemed "Impure." Under the Genetic Reclamation Act, those found to be impure -- criminals, homosexuals, the insane or those suffering from "moral deviancy" -- were arrested by agents of the newly created Eugenics Bureau, an offshoot of the FBI, and sterilized. Impure families were torn apart, forced into ghettos and prohibited from owning property and working anything but menial jobs. Those who refused to comply fled to the ghettos trying to disappear among the masses of Impures, or to the tunnels below the city in an effort to carve out a meager existence.
When their daughter Esther is born blind, Jim, Rita and their son, Jack, flee their previous lives, trying to survive on the outskirts of humanity while avoiding the Eugenics Agents pursuing them. Huddled under a bridge one night, the family is viciously attacked by a group of "Pures," led by the son of the powerful Senator Blackthorpe, who drafted the cruelest parts of the Genetic Reclamation Act. Jim, Rita and their children are rescued by Lazarus, a former prizefighter, who brings the family to The Burrow, an abandoned subway station below the city where they meet other Impures fleeing persecution. When his son is killed during the attack, Senator Blackthorpe instructs the merciless Special Agent Artemis Pembroke, a sociopath and fervent believer in social purity, to use whatever means necessary to bring those responsible for his son's death to justice.
For Their Blood Burns Wild is a story of abuse of power and corruption, prejudice, family, community and survival that is eerily prescient of today's political climate.