The Next Right Thing has humanity, humor, and insight to burn. Author Dan Barden takes the clay of the California hard-boiled novel and shapes it into something new.

Any time you have poverty, joblessness, sub-par public schools, and a lack of opportunity, you're going to have a high rate of crime.

The worst kind of novel is one that blames other people for the racial problem in order to make the reader feel good about himself. As if it's only rich white people or Republicans or conservatives who have this disease.

The crime part is the engine that moves the narrative and allows me to write the other things I want to write about.

We get schooled by the people around us, and it stays inside us deep.

Top-shelf fiction, a Crown Royal ride into the heart of Night and New York. Con Lehane's work is reminiscent of the best of Lawrence Block, which is to say that this is very good stuff, indeed.

The most popular American fiction seems to be about successful people who win, and good crime fiction typically does not explore that world. But honestly, if all crime fiction was quality fiction, it would be taken more seriously.