Are you really a cop if you’re not allowed on patrol? Are you really a friend when all your words are lies? Are you really a woman if your job belongs to men? And can you really be a good guy when you spend all your time with the bad?

Identity, truth to one’s self, and faithfulness to the cause, whichever cause it may be, draw characters together and tear them apart in Connie Dial’s Set the Night on Fire. A young woman walks the Los Angeles streets, rubbing shoulders with junkies, taking part time jobs to pay the rent, and working her way through the rank and file of protestors as she seeks to be trusted by those who call the shots. But she’d also like to be trusted by the cops because, after all, she’s one of them, undercover and wondering who she’ll be when she re-surfaces.

It’s a city where no one is quite what they seem, where violence threatens to set the night on fire, and where police corruption might only be one step above or below that on the streets. Collective and individual struggles to be heard, taken seriously, and understood form the backbone of Officer Josie Pastore’s world. They’re set against a vivid 1970s backdrop of LA’s beauty and decay, and told with author Connie Dial’s fine-tuned willingness to see all sides of each argument, and give all sides in the voices of characters too real to be denied.

Josie Pastore works for the good, but her heart beats for the wounded too. She makes friends too easily, influences few, and hides behind her poverty, while waiting for a new life where the inconvenience of regulation heels and purse might hide the skills she’s learned. Neither rebel nor doormat, she seeks a worthwhile place in the world while making the world a better place. She’s a character strong enough to build a serious series around, and a dogged seeker of the truth.

Author Connie Dial has already written Josie’s future in three previous novels. Here, new readers will meet wounded characters well worth caring about, and long-term readers will see and delight in the past that makes Corsino tick. I just hope there’ll be more.

Disclosure: I was given a free preview edition and I offer my honest review. I honestly couldn’t put it down! ( )