Down the River Unto the Sea **** (of 4)

Joe King Oliver was once a pure-blue New York City policemen until he was framed for sleeping with a young, excessively attractive perp. Well, she was under suspicion, and he really should not have, but she asked so kindly... King was detained in solitary and abused by guards and inmates for 90 days on Rikers Island before being released without charges. His physical and mental scars still afflict him a decade later. His ex-wife, and her new husband, torment him. He makes a living as a private investigator probing New York's underbelly. His seventeen year old daughter, on the verge of womanhood, but still in high school, serves as his assistant.

Two plots entwine Oliver: an opportunity to clear his name for the set up with his femme fatale and a an appeal to save the life of an inmate on death row who is a radical black activist who definitely killed two policeman, but who also might have been ambushed in a shootout that led to their deaths. Joe King Oliver is a black man with the capacity to pass as a drunk street person while working under cover, but do not be fooled. While he was in prison, he read everything he could and has not stopped reading since. His conversations refer to existentialists, philosophers, and the classics. He is surrounded by ex-cons with criminal pasts and sound intentions for the present and decent cops with indecent practices.

The detective work is complex, the city is dark, race matters, and the cast is all too human. Joe King Oliver is the hub around which the real world of sin, desire, corruption, relief, and a search for justice all revolve.