Trigger /

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Forced to retire from the D. C. police, newly minted P.I. Frank Marr is recovering from rock bottom when a friend asks for help -- and now, he must revisit the dark, drug-fueled world he left behind.
Ostracized by his family after a botched case that led to the death of his baby cousin, Jeffrey, Frank was on a collision course with catastrophe. Now clean and clinging hard to sobriety, he's barely eking out a living as a private investigator for a defense attorney -- who also happens to be his ex-girlfriend. Frank passes the time -- and tests himself -- by robbing the houses of local dealers, taking their cash and flushing their drugs down the toilet. But when an old friend from his police days needs Frank's help to prove he didn't shoot an unarmed civilian, Frank is drawn back into the world of dirty cops and suspicious drug busts, running in the same circles that enabled his addiction those years ago.
Never one to play by the rules, Frank recruits a young man he nearly executed years before. Together -- a good man trying not to go bad and a bad man trying to do good -- detective and criminal charge headfirst into the D.C. drug wars. Neither may make it out.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

George Pelecanos fans will welcome Swinson's gritty third novel featuring PI Frank Marr (after 2017's Crime Song). Marr, who's finally off the cocaine that led to his early forced retirement from the Washington, D.C., police department, receives a call that Al Luna, his best friend on the force, has shot and killed an apparently unarmed African-American teen. A dedicated cop with a perfect record, Luna swears that the kid came at him with a gun, but investigators find no weapon at the scene. As the community demands justice for the slain youth, several D.C. cops are targeted in fatal retaliatory strikes. Marr devotes himself to clearing his friend's name and hits the street, ably assisted by Calvin Tolson, a sharp ex-street slinger doing his best to play it straight. The two men slip into a shadowy world of drug runners, confidential informants, and criminal alliances-a place both know intimately, and one full of triggers to their own personal demons. Swinson, a former police officer, writes with authority and honesty, giving readers a timely, informed look at the mean streets from an insider's perspective. Agent: Jane Gelfman, Gelfman Schneider/ICM. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

Anyone who's read a few burned-out-hero novels will find themselves on familiar ground here. We pick up the story of former D.C. cop turned PI Frank Marr (following Crime Song, 2017) as he's burgling a drug house, flushing the stuff but keeping wads of bills for himself. And explaining that he lost both his job on the police force and a spectacular woman for ""pissing dirty."" Frank puts his remorse aside after he gets a call for help. His former partner is facing ruin because he gunned down a Black teenager. The cop swears the kid pulled a gun, but no weapon was found. Would Frank help clear this good guy caught in a volatile situation? His inquiries lead him into a tangled plot that, echoing The Maltese Falcon, is most interesting for the characters our hero encounters. Like police informant Tami Darling, a woman out of noir, playing both sides and finally siding with the creeps because they pay better. Frank remains a fascinating, deeply flawed protagonist, and, while this installment of his story is a bit less compelling than the previous two episodes, he remains a hard-boiled hero well worth our attention.--Don Crinklaw Copyright 2019 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

Cops good, bad, and retired on the mean streets of Washington, D.C.After cocaine forces him to take early retirement from the Narcotics Branch, Frank Marr reconstitutes himself as a private investigator in recovery. When his former partner and good friend Al Luna is involved in a "bad shooting" that results in the death of a 16-year-old African-American boy, Marr joins forces with his former girlfriend Leslie Costello, an attorney, to try to mount his defense. Al swears there was a gun, but none has been located, and, on administrative leave, he is not much help; Leslie is not hopeful, and she's often in court anyway, so Marr undertakes an investigation in his own somewhat unconventional way. Getting a sandwich, Marr encounters Calvin, a young man he victimized in his last police action, and in the course of events the two forge a teacher-apprentice relationship. Calvin knows the street and some of the players, and he and Marr manage to uncover unsavory connections and suspicious coincidences but no gun. Then a neighborhood shootout turns Marr in a new direction, and one character unexpectedly provides a little leverage, and Marr and Calvin are back on the trail. Marr is frequently tempted to relapse into cocaine use, and he and Luna consume a prodigious quantity of alcohol keeping their various demons at bay, but addiction never really gets any traction in the plot, nor does the tension of working with one's estranged sweetheart.The private eye and his apprentice have a pleasingly uneasy relationship, and the growth of their friendship is the most rewarding element in the book. Though the two don't exactly triumph over ambiguity and injustice, the unlikely buddies enliven a slightly flat thriller. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

David Swinson is a retired police detective from the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, DC, having been assigned to Major Crimes. Swinson is the author of the critically acclaimed Frank Marr Trilogy - The Second Girl, Crime Song and Trigger, and the standalone City on the Edge. He lives in Northern Virginia.