In a True Light: A Novel of Crime (Otto Penzler Books)

Sloane’s past in New York’s bohemian 1950s is never far from the slippery surface of his present in this stylish noir tale from John Harvey, the award-winning novelist touted by the London Times as “the King of Crime.” Nearing sixty, Sloane has just finished serving two years in an English prison for art forgery, when he’s summoned to Pisa by Jane Graham, the celebrated artist with whom he had an affair four decades before, in New York. Now on her deathbed, Jane reveals that Sloane fathered a child with her. Jane’s last wish is that he find their missing daughter. Sloane agrees, but his trouble only begins when he locates the confused, edgy Connie. Let alone that she is wasting her bluesy voice singing in New York’s smalltime jazz clubs; she is wasting her life big-time on Vincent Delaney, her volatile mob-connected manager. An unfamiliar paternal instinct pulls Sloane into Connie’s rescue and a maelstrom of criminal violence, serial murder, police procedures, hard truths, and increasingly dangerous consequences.