The Blinds

Loved this from the first page, maybe I was even hooked from the cover but by the epigraphs, the pencil sketch of Caesura and the prologue Sternbergh had me captive.
The Blinds is a place where people go to forget, literally - they've had part of their memories shaved away. Are they odious criminals or innocents in the ultimate witness protection scheme? But when a murder follows a recent suicide, the relative peace of the township is threatened. Sheriff Copper and his deputies start looking into it but there's also interest from outside the complex which could blow the whole place apart.
I've read Sternbergh's Spademan novels and Cooper has a similar style - protective with a dark undercurrent. Same too is the gutteral nastiness that pops up now and again, an electric shock that leaves a bad taste in your mouth and clouds the rest of your reading. But it's worth it, because when it comes down to it we all just want to KNOW!