This is the fifth novel in the Mercy Investigations Series: While Mercy Torcher is back in Boston, undercover to help her father, the Judge (see "Convictions"), Ed Steadman, Jack Nowan, and Reggie Jackson are left in San Francisco to deal with a rape and attempted murder by a sexual predator of a boy, the nephew of redhead Acton Barr, half Steady Ed's age but attracted to him. Also a particularly nasty bail skip, and a vicious dust-up for Reggie with four white hockey players from SF State, who take issue with a young black man dating a white girl. Into the mix comes a group of would-be male...