Winner of the Edgar Award for Best Novel of the Year: bestselling author Walter Mosley "is back with a whole new character to love...As gorgeous a novel as anything he's ever written" (
Washington Post
).
Joe King Oliver was one of the NYPD's finest investigators until he was framed for sexual assault by unknown enemies within the force. A decade has passed since his release from Rikers, and he now runs a private detective agency with the help of his teenage daughter. Physically and emotionally broken by the brutality he suffered while behind bars, King leads a solitary life, his work and his daughter the only lights. When he receives a letter from his accuser confessing that she was paid to frame him years ago, King decides to find out who wanted him gone and why.
On a quest for the justice he was denied, King agrees to help a radical black journalist accused of killing two on-duty police officers. Their cases intertwine across the years and expose a pattern of corruption and brutality wielded against the black men, women, and children whose lives the law destroyed. All the while, two lives hang in the balance: King's client's and his own.
"A wild ride that delivers hard-boiled satisfaction while toying with our prejudices and preconceptions." —Steph Cha,
Los Angeles Times