Coleman writes some of the best prose in modern crime fiction, but it comes at a price. As hero Gus Murphy, former cop and former family man, now hotel security and bar bouncer, goes through his dangerous day, we admire the beautifully crafted sentences, all the while dodging those bullets. Taking cracks to the jaw. Avoiding that car coming up behind us too fast, guns at the windows. Murphy has been hired to investigate a young girl's murder. Not who did it the scumbag's in jail but why. There is no apparent motive. Nearly 300 pages later, we, and Murphy, are still in the dark. Instead of solutions, we get the company of a depressive given to reminding us that the world is cold and wondering if there are things other than grief and pain to life. Readers who long to take a Weedwacker to all these neo-Hemingway musings are advised to hang on. The novel ends with a series of stunning set pieces that are sure to be echoed, just as they echo The Godfather. I will call on you one day, Gus . . . . --Crinklaw, Don Copyright 2016 Booklist

Shamus Award-winner Coleman delves deep into the wounded psyche of his ex-cop lead, Gus Murphy, in his outstanding sequel to 2016's Where It Hurts. Gus, who's still struggling with the sudden death of his 20-year-old son, John Jr., kills time working as a courtesy-van driver shuttling between a ratty Suffolk County hotel and Long Island's MacArthur Airport. Meanwhile, the hidden past of his friend Slava Podalak, the hotel's night bellman, has resurfaced with a vengeance, and Gus becomes a witness to murder. In addition, Gus's confidant, Bill Kilkenny, a former priest, asks him to help the wealthy Micah Spears find out not who butchered his granddaughter but why. Spears makes Gus an offer impossible to resist-funding a youth sports foundation in John Jr.'s name. Coleman doesn't pull any punches or settle for pat character arcs in presenting a realistically flawed Gus, who realizes that his morality "was not so much a search for the truth as a set of rationalizations that let [him] sleep at night." Agent: David Hale Smith, Inkwell Management. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

After his son's sudden death, Gus -Murphy was a tortured soul. He credits his recovery to his friendship with ex-priest Bill Kilkenny, so when Kilkenny asks Murphy to meet a friend, he agrees. The friend is Micah Spears, whose granddaughter was brutally murdered. Spears wants answers, but the apprehended killer is silent. Gus, a cop-turned-van driver for a Long Island hotel, gets caught up in a second case when one of his passengers is murdered gangland style. It turns out Gus's coworker and friend Slava, who has a secretive past, had known the stranger previously. Murphy is your average caring guy, who is good at his job and full of faults, whose philosophy is evident and commentary on point. Murphy is not slick, but he is effective. VERDICT -Coleman's second series outing (after Where It Hurts) is part police procedural, part human interest story, part philosophical monolog, and totally fun reading. [See Prepub Alert, 8/15/16.]-Edward -Goldberg, Syosset P.L., NY © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.