Nicky Snape is a 15 year old tearaway who will steal anything from anyone. He steals his mother's money and his teacher's purse and later on breaks into a house to steal more. When the elderly owner tries to beat him off with an iron rod, Nicky takes it an beats him with it. When the old man's wife tries to stop him, he attacks her.He is caught because he has dropped the library card from the teacher's purse at the scene. He is taken off to a juvenile facility where he is later found hanging in the bathroom. Resnick's team investigates the death, but the self-serving bureaucracy of the state care institution and its staff keeps them from getting satisfactory explanations. And then the outside officer who is brought in to head the investigation is brutally beaten to death. He is an upstanding citizen, a lay preacher, no known enemies but the killing seems more than a simple robbery gone wrong.The Resnick books are all about relationships - the dynamics of the increasingly diverse police team (blacks and openly gay officers), the hopelessly damaged Snape family, the growing attraction between Resnick and Nicky Snapes' teacher Hannah. The brutality of the crimes is tempered by the depth of understanding Harvey shows to even the most troubled of his characters. The story is complex and compelling, and the Resnick character continues to grow in this wonderfully written series.
