Counterpoint, Berkley CA 2018

This is the second novel by John Verdon I have come across, and Dave Gurney has really endeared himself to me. Obviously this retired NYPD detective is Verdon´s alter ego, living in the rural mountains of upstate New York, where he raises chickens, tends the garden, and lives together with his wife, a clinical psychologist. The perfect setting for a detective, whose approach to crime is mainly focussed in his mind.

To keep the thrill going, the murders have to be atrocious. The fictive town of White River is experiencing a specially fierce confrontation between black and white, the media and the police, Gurney and the established forces of the law.
 

All in all a really good read. Gurney´s style is elaborate and fairly conservative, with only one friend of his fluent in the shit and fuck department. So Verdon´s first novel “Wolf Lake” might be worth reading, too.