Outstanding. I had previously read and loved Higgins's first three books, all of which have much in common. This one, however, is different--most notably in that it's about a cop, but also in that it tackles the cop's domestic life in almost equal weight to his attempt to get convictions on a band of bank robbers.

Of course, it's all dialogue and all of Higgins's brand: early on, Deke Hunter tells his father-in-law, "I'm looking for a guy, and I haven't got very much time to find him. And I'd better find the son of a bitch, because his buddies're going to trial in a couple of months or so up in Salem, and if we're convicting them, which we're gonna do, we're gonna have to use a guy that the guy I can't find doesn't know about yet, and as soon as we use him, if I haven't found the guy, the guy we got to use is dead." It all makes sense as one reads--but the book is so rich and complicated in spots that the reader will have to reread conversations and thumb back through others and be rewarded by thoughts like, "OK--so that's why the lawyer wouldn't say anything." The mystery, the draw, isn't as much what will happen in the courtroom as the fun the reader has keeping everything straight. Yes, there's the criminal plot, but the scenes with Deke and his wife are just as good. The only time the reader doesn't get dialogue is when he gets paragraphs about jury selection or procedures--and these are all written in a clinical, factual style.

One caution: Higgins's books, including this one, are often petty vulgar in the strictest sense of the word--not in terms of "bad words," but in bad deeds described. Don't lend these to your maiden aunt or seventh grader. Still, the vulgarity all works to propel the novel and add to the reader's impression of the characters. Higgins has absolute respect for his reader's intelligence. ( )