Retributions

After two decades as Sheriff of New Hope County, much of it described in The Jump Rope Murders, Marek Novak, in his prime, takes on a new job as Chief of Detectives in the nearby city. The detective division is in disarray and Marek is hired because he might be able to straighten it out. His boss tells him that the best way to win the trust of the men and women in the division is to face a really difficult case and to solve it. No one involved ever imagined that such a case would come so quickly, or that it would hit so devastatingly close to home.The case shows Marek more than he ever wanted to know about retribution and its kin, revenge. Retribution, a key element in the justice system, means that criminal behavior is to be punished, with the punishment being proportionate to the crime's seriousness. Revenge is a more private matter. It means harming someone as punishment for some wrong they have done to oneself or to others close to oneself. The concepts of retributive justice and pure revenge are on full display in this story, and both are based on the simple, primal notion of payback.