The Ten Count

The brutal throat-slashing murder of Crawford Academy's football coach has the city on edge. The fact that his body was found in the gay section of Jefferson Park has created more than a few whispers about the macho coach. That creeps social worker Duffy Dombrowski out enough, but not nearly as much as the fact that the kid he's counseling said he wanted to slit the coach's throat the day before.

Now Duffy is assigned to the high school as a grief counselor, and before he can confront his client, the kid gets beaten into a coma by the captain of the football team. As rumors of a high school sex club run rampant, murder becomes routine in Crawford, until a victim is someone close to Duffy.

Everything points to the coach's sex life, his players, and maybe to the coach leading the team into a different arena. Duffy is not so sure. Add in a new love affair with TJ Dunn, a concussion that might drive Duff out of the boxing game, and the daily challenges of Al the Basset Hound, and you have the fastest paced, most complex, and culturally challenging Duffy mystery yet.