Long Way Down by Lauren Gilley

When she was six, a horrific crime against a family member determined the course of Melissa Dixon’s life. It eventually drove her away from her tiny, Mississippi home town, away from her family, and into a career in law enforcement. Living and working in NYC, she keeps the past locked away tight, memory relegated to rare nightmares.

That all changed, however, when her Lean Dog CI, Pongo, involved her in the takedown of an international sex trafficking ring. Now, freshly-transferred to Sex Crimes, disturbed by what she glimpsed on the fringes of the Abacus case, memory and old trauma crowd her mind and cloud her judgement, as she and her new partner, Rob Contreras, tackle a serial rape case in which their suspect is paying tribute to an incarcerated rapist with a similar MO. Albeit reluctantly, Melissa turns to Pongo for help, and as the case grows murkier, she begins to understand the allure of the club in an ultimately lawless world.

Long Way Down is a mystery/thriller centering around a main m/f romance intended for adult audiences. It’s the fourth installment of the Lean Dogs Legacy series, a spinoff of the Dartmoor series, and references events that took place in the most recent Dartmoor novel, The Wild Charge. It is not a standalone.