Lives Laid Away

December 15, 2018
August Snow (introduced in August Snow, 2017) is using his hefty wrongful-termination settlement from the Detroit Police Department to revitalize his neighborhood, Mexicantown. That is, until an ICE unit prowling the neighborhood sends August's right-hand man, Carlos, into hiding. August, a former soldier and cop, thrives on eliminating threats, but halting the federal machine is beyond him. Then, an old contact brings August evidence of another predator stalking Detroit's immigrant community: photographs of an unidentified young woman's body, whose injuries indicate sex trafficking. Elena, August's well-connected activist godmother, identifies her as Izzy, a hardworking girl recently picked up by ICE in Mexicantown. August and his gunslinging godfather, Tom�s, confront Detroit's former sex-trafficking kingpin, who swears he's sold his business to an anonymous buyer, leaving them to follow the trail to rogue federal agents and another shipment of girls leaving Detroit's harbor. Hard-driving noir, with a strong dose of neighborhood camaraderie; for read-alike comparisons, think Easy Rawlins and his close-knit L.A. neighborhood meet Jack Reacher.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)