"Ex-cop Jack Taylor has again hit rock bottom: one of his best friends is dead, the other has stopped speaking to him; he has given up battling his addiction to alcohol and pills; and his firing from the Irish national police, the Guards, is ancient history. He has taken up a vigilante case against a respected professor of literature at the University of Galway who has a violent habit his friends in high places are only too happy to ignore. Enter Emerald, an edgy young Goth who could either be the answer to Jacks problems, or the last ripped stitch in his undoing."--Jacket flap.