Just over six weeks since she entered PI Mark Desmond's life, Renata Genzler is unexpectedly, and brutally, murdered. Determined to track down his newfound lover's killer, and to honor his promise to find her missing brother, Desmond is drawn into a web of lies, all of which have one question at their center: who was Renata? To solve the puzzle of her life, Desmond must navigate his way through a landscape of sexual politics whose boundaries and signposts are being redrawn. It's the USA in 1988: a broken heartland caught in the grip of an incurable epidemic where born-again Bible-belters, New Age dreamers, unfaithful partners, and mavericks of every kind provide the necessary clues. Cruel Love Ways. The 2nd Mark Desmond hard-boiled novel.