The Truth Always Kills -- Rick Ollerman

The other day I mentioned the sad condition of the Bouchercon dealers' room and the few small boxes of old paperbacks.  One benefit of poking around in those boxes is that you might run into someone else who has an interest in that kind of thing, and I did.  I met Rick Ollerman.  I've enjoyed his introductions to any number of Stark House books, and I also blurbed his double novel from that publisher, Turnabout and Shallow Secrets, so it was great to meet him in person.  In fact, he seemed to visit that area quite often.  I think that every time I saw him after that, he had another armful of old paperbacks from those boxes.  He should just have bought the entire stock.

The introduction to Ollerman's new novel is provided by Ben Boulden, who notes that the book could be looked at as sort of a sequel to John D. MacDonald's The Executioners (filmed as Cape Fear).  A newly released con named Roy Evans appears to be a menace to the family of a cop named Jeff Prentiss.  Roy is the biological father of the daughter of Lori, Jeff's wife, and Roy is a stalker.  

Jeff is responsible for the "suicide of [his] career over a moral high ground."  If not for the union, he says, he'd be "refueling boats at a marina somewhere."  But while he believes in morality, he also knows he has to do something about Roy.  It's not going to put him on the moral high ground, but as Jeff says, "If we make our own happiness we should also be responsible for our own hells."

I'm tempted to call The Truth Always Kills a noir novel, but for me it's not quite there.  It's certainly dark enough, though.  It's also well written and well paced, and it gets a high recommendation from me.