For SFPD Inspector Cole Hoffer, homicide victim Chuck Hattaran is not just another case. The murdered lawyer is an affront to Cole's career, his life, and his understanding of himself. In reality, Hoffer was having an affair with Hattaran's wife, Mia. So Hoffer has to find Hattaran's killer since the prime suspect in the killing is himself. At under 100 pages, this was a quick read. The Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco is accurately portrayed in its gritty, seedy setting but the overall writing of this book was not that great..

Cole is from a family of police officers and thanks to nepotism has a posting as a homicide detective in Central Station of San Francisco Police Department. The Legal Defence Rep for the Police Union is murdered while wandering in the Tenderloin, an unsavoury district, at night. Cole had a secret affair with the victim’s wife some years earlier and is still infatuated with her to the point where he fears he might be considered a suspect in the murder. Fortunately he is assigned the murder case, though without any apparent expectation that it will be solved. In a precinct with a closure rate of only 25%, and staffed by some of the most indifferent police officers possible, one wonders why he just doesn’t file it directly as yet another unsolved murder to add to all the other cold cases.
However, wanting to impress and ingratiate himself with the new widow, and hoping to rekindle their brief romance, he blunders around in the Tenderloin, his staggering incompetence causing civil unrest and a small riot, before arresting what appears to be an innocent party.
Cole is a totally unsympathetic character, incompetent and with no redeeming features. The story drags but the book is mercifully short. I would not care to read another book in the series.