Cold in July

When Richard Dane shoots and kills a burglar in his living room, he sets off a strange sequence of events, starting with a threat by the thief's father to kill Richard's son and leading to a dark, horrible truth. Reprint.

Despite the trappings -- guns, stakeouts, an ex-con, a private eye, a porn ring, a shootout -- this isn't an ordinary suspense novel. It's a lean, effective character study about a man who risks his comfortable life to pursue something half-glimpsed within his psyche. He feels guilty about his father's suicide, he doubts his ability to raise his own son, and now he's mixed up with another father, whose son has gone into a place of great darkness. A stirring tale in which actions have consequences, and no one is left unchanged by the things that they see and do.