Five Minutes Alone by Paul Cleave

Newly reinstated, detective Theodore Tate and his ex- and now early retired partner, Carl Schroder, are barely recovering from a near-fatal encounter with a serial killer when a new string of murders emerges. Convicted rapists are being found dead,. Tate finds himself drawn into a moral dilemma when he concludes that Schroder is most likely the vigilante. A poignantly pessimistic novel, which delves into the psychological toll which law enforcement has to (almost constantly) deal with when violent crime goes unpunished. That said, the novel remains pure Cleave, with a few nice twists and turns and the odd whodunit, whilst retaining his uniquely ascorbic dark humour. 4/5