JAMAICA PLAIN

Perps and the public beware: A maverick cop is on the job, and on the loose, in Boston.

Yorkshire copper Jim Grant has a mantra running through his head on a loop—"Keep out of trouble"—when he crosses the pond to interrogate Boston prisoner Freddy Sullivan about a burglary on Grant's home turf. Instead, in short order, Grant hooks up with a pretty fellow traveler for a quickie at an airport hotel and brawls with some street thugs because he just can't help it. He arrives for the interview with a bit of an edge; he and Sullivan have a history and trade insults before getting down to it. Things take a strange turn when Sullivan tearfully pleads with Grant to have him extradited back to England, and an even stranger turn when someone rolls a grenade into the interrogation room. The subsequent explosion shortens the questioning but lengthens Grant's stay in Beantown. His Boston contact, Detective Sam Kincaid, helps Grant in his search for truth and revenge. Grant and Kincaid aren't surprised when they trace the incident to the IRA, but they're unable to prevent Sullivan's death. On the plus side, Grant gets real traction with the help of John Cornejo, a like-minded Marine. The two-fisted trio blazes through a high-end cathouse, a respectable-looking shell company called Delaney Enterprises and countless toughs only too eager to fight them.

Grim and gritty and packed with action and crackling dialogue, the latest from Campbell (Blue Knight, White Cross, 2009, etc.) opens a new series called A Resurrection Man.