The Night Gardener

Gus Ramone is "Good Police," working homicide for the city's Violent Crime Branch. His latest case involves the death of a local teenager named Asa whose body has been found in a community garden.

The murder unearths intense memories of a case Ramone worked twenty years earlier, when he and his partner, Dan "Doc" Holiday, assisted a legendary detective named T.C. Cook. The series of killings, all involving teenage victims, was never solved. In the years since, Holiday left the force under a cloud of morals charges; he now works as a bodyguard and driver. Cook retired, but he has never stopped agonizing about the "Night Gardener" killer.

Asa's death draws them together on a mission to finish the work that has haunted them for years. The regret, anger, and fierce sense of purpose that once burned between them come rushing back as the men try to lay to rest the monster who has stalked their dreams. George Pelacanos achieves in The Night Gardener what his brilliant career has been building toward: a novel that is a perfect union of suspense, character, and unstoppable fate. (back cover)