You Can Die Trying

In the third novel to feature African American L.A. private investigator Aaron Gunner (after Not Long for This World ), a white cop much loathed in the black community apparently guns down an unarmed black kid in a dark alley following a robbery. After being publicly crucified, the policeman puts a bullet through his head and dies unmourned. But then an eyewitness confides in Gunner that he saw the kid shoot twice before the cop fired and asks the PI to investigate. In need of a client, Gunner reluctantly takes the volatile case. He finds the gun (a dummy that shoots blanks) and a Latina policewoman willing to listen to this discomfiting new evidence. Barely pausing for narrative breath, the author adds intriguing elements to his plot: the eyewitness isn't a thoroughly convincing player; his brother is beaten up; another kid involved in the robbery is tight-lipped; the dead boy's uncle is a gambler with big debts; and most people in the black community are ready to let this possible injustice pass, believing a larger justice has been served by the cop's death. Gunner is a rarity in recent detective fiction: soured, yet utterly believable, tough and resourceful without being cartoonishly overblown. This pulsating mystery strengthens an already forceful series. ( July )