'Strong and sobering â€Â¦ with his storyteller's sense of dramatic action [Straley's] in his glory.'-The New York Times Book Review

'One of the strongest series since Hillerman set up shop.'-Kirkus Reviews

Cecil Younger is an investigator for the public defender in Sitka, Alaska. A woman who hired him to investigate her rape is found dead in the estuarial waters of Ketchikan township, 'her throat cut so deeply that the trachea flopped out like a rubbery white radiator hose.'

John Straley lives in Sitka, Alaska, with his wife, a marine biologist who studies whales. He is the author of half a dozen Cecil Younger mysteries.