[close] Seems impossible, but Jack Taylor is sober - off booze, pills, powder, and nearly off cigarettes, too. One reason he's been able to keep clean: his dealer's in jail, which leaves Jack without a source. When that dealer calls him to Dublin and asks a favor in the soiled, sordid visiting room of Mountjoy Prison, Jack wants to tell him to take a flying leap. But he doesn't, can't, because the man's sister is dead and the guards have called it "death by misadventure." But he says that can't be true and begs Jack to have a look, check around, see what he can find. "Finding" is exactly what Jack does, with varying levels of success, to make a living. But he's reluctant, maybe because of who's asking or maybe because of the bad feeling growing in his gut. Never one to give in to bad feelings, or to common sense, Jack agrees to the favor, though he can't possibly know the shocking, deadly consequences to which this simple request will lead. There's no question that Jack will understand soon, sooner than he knows, in this dark, lethal, fast and furious novel from the new master of crime fiction. [close]