In the seventh of the Aaron Gunner mysteries, Gunner's work as an L.A. private investigator hits far too close to home when his beloved cousin is involved in a murder-suicide. Angry and grief-stricken, Gunner digs deep to find out what really happened, while he's also working for a defense attorney to try to clear the name of a young Afghanistan war veteran who may have been wrongly accused of murder.
Like the first six books in the Aaron Gunner series, this dark, brooding tale will remind readers of classic Southern California crime novelists Philip Marlowe and Ross Macdonald. Haywood’s tight, no-frills prose is outstanding, and he does a fine job of developing the characters who inhabit Gunner’s poor side of town.
Haywood reminds readers of our complex motives and the possibility of violence always present in noir books. Tracy Clark’s readers will want to rediscover a master.
Mr. Haywood—this is his seventh and best novel yet to feature Gunner—is a gifted writer with a flair for description ... The two dissimilar cases confronting Gunner test the detective’s confidence to the fullest. He sees himself, at his most insecure, as 'a black pretend-cop working from the back of a Watts barbershop.' But an abundance of tenacity, courage and resourcefulness proves a lot more valuable to Gunner and his fortunate clients than a fancy office.
