The surrogate thief

What's in this book, at a glance — five things readers want to know before they start.

What this book is about

Joe Gunther recognizes a man he believed was connected to a crime from thirty years ago — a man who was never charged. The reopened cold case forces Gunther to revisit his own history and the limitations of what could be known and proved in a different era. Archer Mayor's tenth Gunther novel is the most personal in terms of Gunther's professional history — the investigator confronting a case that represents his own failure — and the thirty-year gap provides a meditation on what time does to both evidence and the people involved.