You Can Die Trying

By Gar Anthony Haywood

Gunner attempts to set the record straight for a dead police officer with a racist past.

No one in South Central is surprised when Jack McGovern, a brutally racist cop, is accused of gunning down a black teenager in cold blood. But they are shocked when the LAPD actually responds to the charges, firing McGovern and leaving him without badge, pension, or pride. Eight months later, a thief breaks into a stereo store and encounters the disgraced cop, now a night security guard. McGovern draws his gun and, to the thief's surprise, shoots himself in the head.

Few mourn the suicide, but one citizen is unsettled. A witness to the shooting that ended McGovern's career, Mitchell Flowers knows the cop wasn't lying when he said the teenager had fired first. Flowers hires private detective Aaron Gunner to clear the dead cop's name -- pitting Gunner against every civilian in South Central. Soon Gunner tugs on a chain of police corruption that stretches all the way to the top of the LAPD.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Head of Zeus
• Release date: Jun 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781784085384

Gar Anthony Haywood

Gar Anthony Haywood is the Shamus and Anthony award-winning author of twelve crime novels, including the Aaron Gunner private eye series and Joe and Dottie Loudermilk mysteries. His short fiction has been included in the Best American Mystery Stories anthologies, and Booklist has called him "a writer who has always belonged in the upper echelon of American crime fiction." Haywood has written for network television and both the New York and Los Angeles Times.