Book

Down the river unto the sea / Walter Mosley.

Summary:

A FORMER NYPD COP MUST SOLVE TWO CASES: THAT OF A MAN CONDEMNED TO DIE, AND HIS OWN. Joe King Oliver was one of the NYPD's finest investigators until, dispatched to arrest a well-heeled car thief, he was framed for assault by his enemies within the force and landed in Rikers. A decade later, King is a private detective, running his agency with the help of his teenage daughter. Broken by the brutality he suffered and committed in equal measure behind bars, King leads a solitary life, his work and his daughter the only lights. When he receives a letter from a woman who admits she was paid to frame him years ago, King decides to take his own case: finding out who on the force wanted him disposed of - and why. As King embarks on his quest for the justice he was denied, he agrees to help a radical black journalist accused of killing two on-duty police officers who had been abusing their badges to traffic in drugs and prostitutes in the city's poorest neighborhoods. The two cases intertwine across the years, exposing a pattern of corruption and brutality wielded against the black men, women, and children whose lives the law destroyed. To solve them, King must outrun dirty cops, outsmart craven lawyers, and above all protect his daughter from the underworld in which he works. All the while, two lives hang in the balance: King's client's and his own. -- Provided by dustjacket.