Redemption : a Joe Burgess mystery
(Book)

Series information found at fantastic fiction.

All emotionally damaged Vietnam veteran Reggie Libby wanted was normal. Normal wife, normal family, normal job. What he got was a life on the streets of Portland, Maine. Pushing a shopping cart, collecting bottles for redemption. Trying to get right, losing his grip, and trying again. Now Reggie is dead, his body pulled frtom Portland harbor, and his buddy, homicide detective Joe Burgess, is grieving.Grief and mourning are thrust aside when the medical examiner determines that Reggie drowned in a bathtub, with bruising that suggests it was no accident. Who would want to harm Reggie? Plenty of people, it seems. His doctor suspects toxic exposure, possibly workplace related. Reggie was working, but it was under the table, and no one knows where.Reggie's ex-wife and his son have been surveying land Reggie owned with an eye toward development. Reggie's cousin Star, a witch who claims he abused her as a child, has been sending him threatening letters.Burgess has been longing for normal, too, a hope shattered when his girlfriend Chris decides to adopt two needy foster children. Parenthood is not for him. As he loses himself in the investigation, avoiding his personal life, his team is threatened when Det. Stan Perry's nocturnal adventures involve him with a voluptuous hottie and her gun-toting husband, and Stan ends up in custody.The ex-wife stonewalls. The son has disappeared. The employer remains a mystery. The witch serves up a poisonous brew. Burgess and his team soldier on.On a wild, rainy October night as Burgess and his team race to save Reggie's brother, a suspect's bullet exploding from the darkness may mean Burgess will never find the answers.,fanastic fiction.