Wall Street Journal columnist Mark Yost has written a really gritty detective story, Cooper’s Daughter. I’ve talked about Raymond Chandler’s rules of private detectives before in this space. Max Allan Collins has commented on this blog about his creation of a detective who would break those rules, but Mark Yost takes it further. His private eye, Rick Crane, who operates in upstate New York, extorts sexual favors from straying wives in return for his silence to the husbands who’ve paid him, and also acts as a collector for organized crime bosses.

But his life takes a turn when an old man asks him to investigate the beating death of his daughter, who had been dating a local minor league baseball star. His investigations cause him to step on important toes, and guys with heavy fists try to persuade him to stop poking into the matter. But he’s moved by his client’s grief, and seeks a kind of personal redemption in finishing the job.

The morals of this story are interesting. Rick commits adultery both recreationally and romantically, but also tells us he’s a regular churchgoer.

Rick Crane is an interesting and complex hard-boiled gumshoe, and I look forward to further stories about him. Cautions for adult themes and language.