This is the sixth novel in the Arthur Beauchamp series authored by Deverell, a trial lawyer, journalist, and the creator of the CBC television series Street Legal; his crime novels have won the Dashiell Hammett Award and two Arthur Ellis awards. Based on the case of a "thrill killer" whom Deverell successfully prosecuted in the 1980s, the novel begins with a 1987 trial in Vancouver of a young man accused of killing a down-and-out street performer. Arthur takes on the prosecution amid personal struggles with alcoholism and his difficult marriage to the unfaithful Annabelle. The second half of book leaps forward in time to his retired life in 2012 on rural Garibaldi Island. Now happily remarried to politician Margaret, he briefly comes out of retirement to defend Dogmar Zbrinjkowitz ("Dog"), a beloved figure on the island charged with trafficking marijuana. Arthur's peaceful, though still neurotic, existence is shattered when the defense attorney from the 1987 trial warns him that the convicted "thrill killer," who swore to take revenge against his prosecutor, is out on parole. Generously mixing personality and plot, Deverell authentically takes readers into the drama of the original court case and builds on its tension and malice that once again haunt Arthur. (Apr.)