Hollowpoint by Rob Reuland

Assistant District Attorney Andrew Giobberti was one of the up and coming stars of the New York DA's Office.  He was until the death of his five year old daughter and the breakup of his marriage afterwards.  He was out of work for an extended time and now that he is back, he just can't bring himself to care much about anything.  Is what he does of any use in the world?  He careens from case to case and woman to woman, never caring much about anything.

Now he has a new case.  A fourteen year old girl has been killed in her bedroom, her baby in the same room.  She lived with her mother who is an addict and an older sister.  The girl was shot in the head, while she was naked and in her bed with a hollowpoint bullet.

A neighbor reports seeing a man fleeing the scene.  She knows the man who used to live downstairs with his grandmother growing up.  He has been in prison but recently released.  He seems like the perfect suspect and is quickly arrested.  But his story points to a more sinister story.  Was the mother a prostitute and did she prostitute her daughters for money to buy drugs?  Was the man the father of the young girl's baby?  What actually happened that night?

Rob Reuland is following the old maxim 'Write what you know' in this novel.  He is himself a senior assistant district attorney in the Brooklyn district attorney's office.  He does a good job of portraying the cynical nature of the men and women forced to deal with senseless crimes day after day.  It leaves them numbed and unsympathetic, both to their clients and themselves to the reader.  The case is successfully resolved and by the end, perhaps DA Giobberti is starting to find redemption also.  This book is recommended for readers of noir detective novels.