Stephen Greenleaf: Past Tense (USA 2010)

From the Publisher:
When his friend, police lieutenant Charlie Sleet, breaks into sudden acts of violence, San Francisco PI John Marshall must unearth the repressed memories at the heart Charlie's corruption and vigilantism to put an end to the killing.

Stephen Greenleaf: Past Tense. A John Marshall Tanner Mystery. Pocket Books, ISBN: 9781451602609 (June, 2010), eBook, 2194 KB (ca. 288 p.), $9.99 (?).

Stephen Greenleaf: Past Tense (USA 1998)

From the Publisher:
The New Yorker calls Stephen Greenleaf "a real writer with real talent." The Chicago Tribune says he is "the legitimate heir to the mantle of the late Ross MacDonald." Now, Greenleaf explores some of the most explosive legal issues of our time in a novel the Boston Sunday Globe hails as his most "hard-edged and compelling" yet.

San Francisco P.I. John Marshall Tanner has always considered Charlie Sleet a true friend -- a good cop, a solid citizen, a guy you can trust down the line. But suddenly and shockingly, Charlie puts Tanner's friendship to a terrible test. Walking into open court, Sleet pulls out his piece and shoots a total stranger... a father accused by his daughter of sexual abuse.

Determined to make sense out of an apparently senseless act, Tanner digs into the darkest depths of Charlie Sleet's secret life... a tangled web of incest, police corruption, vigilantism and murder. At the heart of the mystery lies a repressed sexual memory -- a crime of passion and a cry of pain, a perversion of desire that could lead to the ultimate perversion of justice.

"A first-class noir series." -- The New York Times Book Review

Stephen Greenleaf: Past Tense. A John Marshall Tanner Mystery. Pocket Books, ISBN: 0671019473 (January, 1998), 276 p., $6.50.

Stephen Greenleaf: Past Tense (USA 1997)

From the Publisher:
"Greenleaf plots better than almost anyone in the business and he gets inside even the most minor characters' heads." -- Los Angeles Times
What does it mean when a solid citizen, a policeman, in fact, stands up in open court and shoots a man who is on trial for sexual abuse?
What does it mean when the cop who does the shooting is your best friend?
And what does it mean when the killing continues, suggesting that your friend has become at best a vigilante, at worst a serial killer?

These are just a few of the questions confronting San Francisco private detective John Marshall Tanner in the opening pages of Past Tense, Stephen Greenleaf's compelling new detective novel that will rivet readers' attention from its dramatic opening pages to its wrenching conclusion.

Tanner's relationship with Charley Sleet of the San Francisco Police Department has both personal and professional dimensions and has long been of vital importance to both men. Nothing could be more out of character than for Sleet to stand up in a civil courtroom and gun down a total stranger.

Tanner's search for answers takes him deep into the heated controversy over claims of recovered memories of sexual abuse, into the darkly violent corridors of police corruption, and most painfully of all, into the fearsome new contours of his best friend's mind.

Do the answers lie in the tragic story of Sleet's marriage to his late wife, Flora, or in the history of a bewildered twelve-year-old child whom Sleet befriended, or with the stepdaughter of the accused abuser he killed in court?

Tanner must find Sleet not only to save his friend from himself but to stop him before more victims die. Finally, it is not merely his friendship with Charley Sleet that is at stake, but Tanner's very survival. In confronting Sleet, Tanner faces the most difficult dilemma of his long career. The resolution will alter his life forever.

As the Buffalo News says of this award-winning writer, Stephen Greenleaf is "an author of substance, intelligence and sensitivity, a cool professional with heart." Past Tense is the best yet from an internationally acclaimed master of the detective novel.

STEPHEN GREENLEAF was educated at Carleton College, the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California at Berkeley, and the Program in Creative Writing at the University of Iowa. After some years practicing law, Mr. Greenleaf began writing fiction in 1977. Past Tense is his twelfth John Marshall Tanner detective novel. He is also the author of two courtroom dramas, The Ditto List and Impact. He lives in Oregon.

Jacket design by Calvin Chu
Jacket Photograph by Melissa Hayden

Stephen Greenleaf: Past Tense. A John Marshall Tanner Mystery. Scribner's, ISBN: 0684832496 (April, 1997), 282 p., $22.00.