Content report card
Fear of the Dark parent’s guide: what’s inside
LGBTQ+ themes
What it offers
Educational value
A note for parents
This is a hard-boiled detective noir set in 1970s Los Angeles that deals seriously with racial violence and white supremacism. The protagonist is a morally complex former cop/detective grappling with past failures and seeking redemption. While the violence is present and thematic rather than gratuitous, and the language reflects the genre, this is fundamentally an adult mystery with mature themes that requires emotional maturity to process responsibly.
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From the publisher
Winner of the Shamus Award: A failed private eye searches Los Angeles for a murderous white supremacist. Aaron Gunner made a lousy private detective. After a year's carnage in Vietnam and a quick exit from the police academy, private work was the only avenue he saw to be a hero. But the seediness, tedium, and lack of r... Winner of the Shamus Award: A failed private eye searches Los Angeles for a murderous white supremacist. Aaron Gunner made a lousy private detective. After a year's carnage in Vietnam and a quick exit from the police academy, private work was the only avenue he saw to be a hero. But the seediness, tedium, and lack of real power crushed his hopes, and he quit the job after inadvertently setting a pregnant woman up for a violent death. But after a savage racial murder, it may be time to come out of retirement. The white man comes to the Acey Deuce, a bar in South Central Los Angeles, to blow the head off a young black militant. The dead radical's sister pays Gunner a visit with a .22 revolver, and convinces him to find her brother's killer. As Gunner draws closer to answers, prejudice and rage threaten to tear Los Angeles apart. To save the city—and himself—Aaron Gunner must finally find his calling.
Shelved under
- Fiction
- Aaron Gunner (Fictitious character)
- African American men
- Private investigators
- California, fiction
- Gunner, aaron (fictitious character), fiction
- Los angeles (calif.), fiction
- African americans, fiction
- Fiction, mystery & detective, hard-boiled
- Private investigators, fiction
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ISBN 9781453252918 · Open Road Media