This is my third or fourth book by Meyer, so I obviously like him. We meet another alcoholic detective, the veteran Bennie Griesell, who is drinking himself out of a job and is thrown out of the house by his wife Anna. And he is one of the few white detectives so working on an increasingly black police force. He is given a very difficult and sensational case, which needs quick results, of course. The novel begins with a former hit many named Tiny, living with his young son. His son happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and is gunned down by a couple of young thugs. They are captured, face a trail but are let off from lack of evidence. Tiny, a black, is angry and in despair, vows to get even and the novel begins with a series of unsolved murders of adults who have abused children.
And Bennie must find the killer despite the fact that public opinion seems to be happy with this vigilantism. Like all of Meyer' book, there's a second story, that of a prostitute's daughter who has gone missing which we learn by the prostitute' confession to a Priest, a strange device for telling a story. I would have preferred if Meyer had left out the story of the missing daughter because the story of Tiny and his quest for some kind of poetic justice for the innocent in the world takes over the novel, is the heart of the book.
Bennie works hard to solve both cases and stay sober and finds both his personal and professional lives are connected. The book closes with one of Meyer's most satisfying endings. Meyer's novels are compelling, his protagonists like Griesell strangely likeble, a cross between Henning Mankell's Wallander and Joe Nesbo's Harry Hole.
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