Showing results for "James Sallis" in Police Procedurals

Author James Sallis is acclaimed for his taut mysteries featuring world-weary ex-Memphis cop John Turner, including Cripple Creek. Assuming the role of deputy sheriff in a small town near the city, Turner investigates sordid cases in a community that time is slowly forgetting. Here his past catches up to him when his son rolls down Main Street riding in what appears to be a stolen car.

Lew Griffin is a survivor, a black man in New Orleans, a detective, a teacher, a writer. Having spent years finding others, he has lost his son - and himself - in the process. Now, a derelict has appeared in a New Orleans hospital claiming to be Lewis Griffin and displaying a copy of one of Lew's novels. It is the beginning of a quest that will take Griffin into his own past while he tries to deal in the present with a search for three missing young men.

As Lew Griffin leaves a New Orleans music club with an older white woman he's just met, someone fires a shot and Lew goes down. When he comes fully to, Griffin discovers that most of a year has gone by since that night. What happened? Who was the woman? Which of them was the target? Who was the sniper? There are too many pieces missing, too few facts, and a powerful need to know why a year has been stolen from his life.