“I’m angry. I’m furious.” I bent forward on my chair to look at the floorboards, hands in my coat pockets. I looked at the floorboards and through them to the solid earth below. “I’m furious with Doyle. But also at myself. At men. And women. At the 1960s and moral relativism and Atlanta.”

I’ve been liking Alan Lee’s Mack August books right along, but Broken Symphony is my favorite by far. But that’s probably because it echoes my beliefs so well, so your mileage may vary.

Mackenzie August, Roanoke, Virginia private eye and former extreme martial arts fighter, is lying on his office floor one day (to relieve sciatica) when a young woman comes in to ask for help – with plumbing. She’s one of a group of ex-prostitutes who live in a building owned by Mack’s lawyer wife, Ronnie. She says the drains aren’t working and the caretaker is useless. Not being busy just now, Mack goes with her.

But when Mack gets there, there’s no drain problem. Instead, there’s a gangster from Boston named Doyle, with a thug for backup. Doyle is looking for a girl called Lemonade, who has run away. He also seems to think the girls are now working for him. So Mack throws him down the stairs, along with the thug.

Not long after, Doyle shows up at Mack’s office. He says he doesn’t want to fight with him. He’s going to kill Mack’s gangster friend Marcus, he says, but that’s just business; he doesn’t want Mack involved. In fact, he’d like to hire Mack to find Lemonade for him. Mack refuses, they fight, and Doyle breaks Mack’s little finger.

Then Lemonade’s parents show up. They also want to hire him to find the girl. Mack accepts the job from them and starts hunting for her. What he finds is a baby, Lemonade’s baby, abandoned. Further investigation will lead him to a final confrontation with the ruthless, psychopathic Doyle.

And I’ve got to say, that final confrontation was just splendid. It wasn’t what I expected at all, and it was delightful.

But what I liked best was Mack’s personal meditations as the story proceeds. In the midst of all the sordid details of the lives of addicts and prostitutes and traffickers, he ponders the societal ills brought on by our abandonment of family and of traditional sexual roles (although his own household is scarcely a traditional one). I suppose people on the other side of the cultural divide may find Broken Symphony preachy – I reveled in it.

Highly recommended. Cautions for language and mature themes.