Sad Song — Vincent Banville

John Blaine is a private detective who works Dublin's mean streets. He is tough, talented and smart, but always unlucky in love. His wife has just left him, and he's sad and sorry. Now, hired to bring home a stray daughter of the rich, he takes the girl's side against her powerful father, and suffers for it. Gripping, funny and stripped to the bone, Sad Song is a short novel that packs a punch like a fist in a velvet glove...