ORIGINAL SKIN

A police detective’s curiosity discloses a connection between some nasty cases.

Alas for DS Aector McAvoy’s lovely gypsy wife and two small children: The shy, ginger-haired Scot’s boss, Detective Superintendent Trish Pharaoh, who runs the Serious and Organized Crime Unit, calls him away from his family because she needs his help with a series of murders and tortures caused by a fight for control of the local marijuana trade between the Vietnamese gangs who currently run it and a ruthless group trying to take over. Their patch, the East Yorkshire city of Hull and vicinity, has suffered for years, since the time when it was home to a profitable fishing fleet. McAvoy finds a cellphone that makes him return to the death of Simon Appleyard, a young man involved in kinky sex groups—a death that had been written off as a suicide. Soon after Pharaoh gives McAvoy permission to check out Appleyard’s death, she winds up in the hospital after she’s attacked by dogs belonging to someone connected to the new gang. Although McAvoy would rather be home with his young family, his sense of justice pushes him forward. Unfortunately, his investigation leads to some powerful local politicians who are risking their careers by indulging in sexual behavior as risky as Appleyard’s. While McAvoy and Pharaoh cautiously investigate the powerful politicians and the dangerous drug lords, Appleyard's best friend, a young woman who joined him in the dark world of no-holds-barred sex, is targeted for death.

McAvoy’s second (The Dark Winter, 2012) is an excellent police procedural featuring sex, violence and complex characters who are quirky but likable.