Private investigator Georgia Davis returns to her Chicago apartment late one evening and discovers a note left in her mailbox “Georgia, I am your half-sister, Savannah.  I’m in Chicago and I’m pregnant.  I need your help. Please find me.”  Davis was unaware that she had any siblings at all, so is the note a hoax or does she really have a half-sister who is in trouble?  And where should she even begin to look?  Georgia decides that she must find out and her search eventually takes her to the seamy underbelly of Chicago’s sex-trafficking business.  But it turns out that that is merely the tip of the horrors that Davis must face if she is to find and rescue the young woman who may or may not be related to her. 

Following on the heels of several excellent standalone novels, Libby Fischer Hellmann has returned to Georgia Davis, one of her earlier series characters.  It is like coming back to an old friend who has been away too long.  This is the fourth solo novel about Davis, although she initially appeared in Hellmann’s earlier Ellie Foreman series (and Ellie returns the favor here).  Another character from Davis’ past is also on the scene, this one not nearly so welcome to her as Ellie is. 

This dark tale, well-told, examines troubling and terrible issues in our society.  Hellmann is an expert at tearing into the fabric of that society and exposing the villainy that lies in the depravity so often found in our cities.  Sometimes it takes brutal efforts to defeat ruthlessness and Davis is not above using any means necessary, including enlisting the aid of an organization that can only be considered the lesser of two evils in this context, in order to win.  More than that I cannot say without spoiling where this shocking story is heading.