Once again, even in the violent whirlwind of my life, I was reminded there was still goodness in the world. Strangers willing to help the injured, the helpless, and the innocent. There’d been times in my life when I’d been all three. Even innocent.

There’s a new installment in Matt Coyle’s hard-boiled Rick Cahill series. I’ve reviewed the previous books about this San Diego private eye, a former cop suspected of his wife’s murder. In previous books he has cleared the memory of his father, unjustly suspended from the police force for corruption, and identified his wife’s real killer. My main complaint with the earlier books was that some were excessively dark, but light has broken in increasingly as the series went on – even now in Blind Vigil, when – ironically – the hero has gone blind, due to a bullet wound at the end of the last book.

It’s been nine months since then, and Rick is well along in his recovery, assisted by his girlfriend Leah and his Black Lab, Midnight. He believes his sight is starting to return, but his doctor thinks it’s only a common illusion, similar to phantom limb syndrome in amputees. But Rick is well enough now to feel the need of some activity.

That need is answered by his former PI partner, Moira MacFarlane, who wants his help with a case. She’s been hired by Rick’s estranged best friend, Turk Muldoon, to surveille his girlfriend, whom he suspects of cheating on him. She’d like Rick to sit in as she meets with Turk, to see if he can tell from his voice whether he’s withholding information. After that, she persuades Rick to keep her company as she watches the girlfriend’s apartment. Next thing they know, the girlfriend has been murdered, and Turk has been arrested. Moira thinks Turk is guilty and washes her hands of him, leaving Rick to investigate the case on his own, without eyesight, backup, or a license.

The idea of the blind detective has been tried before, and I never really bought it. I always felt the author had to stack the deck to provide the specialized circumstances in which a blind detective could triumph. I liked this story better than those others. I thought author Coyle did a pretty good job of keeping the tension high without straining the reader’s credibility too much (at least not more than other detective stories, where heroes routinely survive by the skin of their teeth). What I liked best was that Blind Vigil continues the series’ ongoing story arc, in which an embittered, lonely man gradually reintegrates with humanity.

Cautions for what you’d expect. Recommended, like the whole series.