Citizen Vince

Great crime fiction. Good characters, good plot, interesting background imagery of 1980 presidential election, all on interesting backbone of question of criminals' sacrifice of their citizenship tied to the protagonist's search.

Vince is a New Yorker transplanted to Spokane, and the place has grown on him. He leads a quiet life, managing a donut shop, doing a little credit card fraud on the side, and staying out of trouble - until someone out of his pre-Witness Protection past decides to kill him. He heads back to the city to sort things out, pursued by a rookie detective (who, all grown up, appears in Over Tumbled Graves). This tale of small-time criminality is played out during the Carter - Reagan election of 1980, and Vince becomes obsessed with something he's never done before - vote in an election. As a felon, he's outta luck, but with his government-created false identity he can register and vote for the first and probably only time in his life. There's an optimism and sweetness in this book that's hard to describe. Really well done.