A hard-boiled PI crime novel in which the justice system fails first and the investigation starts after the verdict. Vigilante-adjacent detective noir about wealth, predation and the price of a reckoning.
Humiliated by a serial rapist in court, South Lake Tahoe's sheriff and district attorney turn to Dan Reno for justice.
Dealing with his fiancée's mental breakdown, Reno welcomes the distraction, but he knows the case makes no sense. Short of killing the criminal, what can he do?
Regardless, Reno begins investigating. As he peels back the layers, he learns the rapist has a genius IQ and is the brother of a Silicon Valley billionaire. Traveling to San Jose, Reno hooks up with his partner, Cody Gibbons, who has little patience or mercy for sexual predators. But the more they uncover about the rapist and his family, the deeper they descend into a grim rabbit hole with no clean exit.
Desperate for an angle, Reno and Gibbons finally find the necessary leverage, and a bloody reckoning becomes inevitable. But the resolution is one Reno never considered, and it's only then that he learns how both criminal behavior and justice can be their own form of insanity.
The Asylum Thread is book nine in the Dan Reno Novel Series, a mystery for fans of Michael Connelly and Robert Crais.