From Publishers Weekly

Lashner's latest, his fourth and longest, is another big and beautifully written saga, narrated by righteous, melancholy Philadelphia lawyer Victor Carl. Though the book is nominally a legal thriller, the Dickensian atmospherics command as much notice as the plot. A complex case connecting a recent murder to one 20 years ago counterpoints Victor's hospital visits to his dying father, who is obsessed with unburdening himself of (mostly sad) stories from his youth. It's a tribute to Lashner's skill that these yarns hold their own against the more dramatic main story line. Victor has been retained by petty wiseguy Joey Parma (known as Joey Cheaps) about an unsolved murder a generation ago. The victim was young lawyer Tommy Greeley, and Joey Cheaps was one of two perps, though he was never caught. When Joey is found near the waterfront with his throat slashed, Victor knows his duty. This involves considerable legwork and clashes with an array of sharply drawn characters; Lashner is in his element depicting this rogue's gallery, and Victor riffs philosophically on his encounters. Foremost among the shady figures is a femme fatale (improbably but appropriately) named Alura Straczynski, who sets her sights on Victor. It's a move more strategic than romantic, but no less dangerous for him. The standard coverup by men in high places waits at the end of Victor's odyssey, but this novel, like Lashner's previous ones, is all about the journey. Lashner's writing-or is it Victor's character?-gains depth and richness with every installment.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From

Starred Review Joey Cheaps is a bottom feeder. He flits around the edges of the Philadelphia criminal underworld but never scores anything but trouble and jail time. Victor Car, whose place in the legal hierarchy is akin to Joey's in the criminal, is his attorney. Joey reveals to Victor his role in a 20-year-old drug rip-off in which an anonymous young man died. Victor can't fathom why Joey chose to bare his soul when he did but decides to find out when Joey's throat is slit shortly after his confession. Using his police connections to match missing-persons files and unsolved homicides to Joey's time frame, Victor comes up with the likely name of Joey's victim: Tommy Greeley, a failing law student moonlighting in the drug business. Among Greeley's youthful circle were many who subsequently rose to prominence in law and politics. Victor lets the genie out of the bottle with his inquiries on behalf of a failed hood and soon finds himself threatened and his clients receiving unduly harsh penalties in court. Lashner, best-selling author of Fatal Flaw [BKL Mr 15 03], has a rich, sometimes poetic style, but he leavens his prose with humor that fluctuates between morbid and whimsical. This is an extremely good crime novel, and it vaults Lashner into the upper reaches of the hardboiled universe, along with Pelecanos, Lehane, and a very few others. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved