FATHER DIVINE’S BIKES lays bare the dark underbelly of 1945 Newark, a city that profited greatly during World War II, but is unable to cope with the peace that brings joblessness and crime. It melds a gangster war, three murders, a gun-toting paperboy, and the numbers racket into a suspenseful tale of two altar boys adrift in a world of poverty from which there is little hope of escape. Bookies using Father Divine’s controversial movement as a front, recruit the boys to run numbers under the guise of newspaper routes. Their parish priest and two homicide detectives, long aware of what was happening, finally decide to take action. But is it too late?