Really an excellent police procedural reminiscent of Michael Connelly. Hayden Glass is a Robbery Homicide detective​​​​​ assigned to the murder of a politically powerful Councilman's daughter. Hayden is also a recovering sex addict who attends meetings of a group similar to AA so the audience gets a sense of deja vu thinking one might be reading a Lawrence Block Matt Scudder novel albeit with a different emphasis. Unfortunately, Hayden's presence in the group has made some of the members uncomfortable because he's a cop and they no longer feel safe anymore since their addiction involves illegal activity, and feeling safe is essential to their recovery strategy.

Hayden is tossed from his group and is then forced to drive down streets filled with transvestite, massage parlors and triple x movies and and hooker temptations. Stressed out by the rejection and feeling increasingly powerless to stop the murders that appear related, Hayden succumbs to the temptations. Schwartz describes these enticements as "streets like dirty brown rivers with soft, inviting quicksand banks. A step in the water left dark oily residue like liquid tobacco that came off slow leaving hives in its wake. The current unforgiving and relentless in its crusade to sink a man."

Soon some little coincidences reveal to Hayden that all the murders are linked to him and his sex addiction. It appears that his former partner, in bed recovering from a stroke, may hold the key to unreaveling the mystery, as Hayden is tormented by knowing that the longer he hides the connection from his colleagues, the more likely someone else may be killed.

Hayden is a much darker Hieronymus Bosch; this author bears watching. A real page-turner. ( )

An engrossing serial killer book with an ending not dissimilar to Se7en. Detective Hayden Glass is seriously flawed and on a downward spiral, he's lost his wife because of his sexual addiction problem and he's having serious problems getting past step 3 in his 12 step programme and that's before he gets kicked out of his addiction group as the other members aren't comfortable with having a cop there so when a murderer starts killing people he knows only he knows the deaths are related as he can't reveal to his boss just why he would know the prostitute victims. But his problems escalate when his wallet turns up at a crime scene and now he's suspect number one, suspended from duty and running out of options and time.Recommended (but not for the fainthearted). ( )