Lost Tomorrows

Rick Cahill goes back to Santa Barbara — the city where his wife was murdered, where the police still consider him responsible — because a phone call tells him his former partner is dead, and something about the accident doesn't sit right. Hired by the dead woman's sister to investigate, he follows threads that lead back to the crime that destroyed his original life, toward a truth that will require him to pay in ways he cannot afford and cannot avoid. Shamus and Lefty Award winner.

Eric A. Shelman narrates with the grim persistence the Rick Cahill series requires — his voice carries the character's particular quality of damaged determination, the sense of someone continuing past the point where it would be rational to stop. The Santa Barbara setting, with its combination of coastal beauty and institutional hostility toward Rick, benefits from Shelman's grounded performance. At just under nine hours, Lost Tomorrows is one of the series' most personal and satisfying entries.