Another day, another Marty Singer book by Matthew Iden. I’m zipping through them pretty fast. I expect I’ll miss them when I’ve run out.

One Right Thing begins with a seemingly irrational act on the part of Marty Singer, retired Washington, D.C. cop and cancer survivor. He’s driving down a Virginia highway when he sees a billboard with a man’s picture on it. The message says that the man, J. D. Hope, was murdered, and offers a reward for clues. Marty turns his car around and heads to the town where the murder happened.

He’s not playing knight errant, righting wrongs from the back of a metaphorical white horse. Back when he was a detective, Marty helped convict J.D. Hope of a crime he probably didn’t commit. His partner planted evidence, and Marty suspected but let it pass. Hope was a career criminal, after all, and was bound to go to prison sooner or later. But he’s ashamed.

In the man’s town, Marty clashes with a strangely passive local police department as he uncovers a ring of crystal meth producers. J.D. Hope, he learns, was making an attempt at redemption when he died, and Marty has his own redemption to pursue.

One Right Thing is an excellent mystery, well written, with a solid moral center. Recommended. Cautions for language. The violence isn’t too extreme.