Color Me Dead — Charles Ray

Al Pennyback retired from the army when his wife and son were killed in an auto accident and became a private detective based in Washington, DC. He has few friends and lives alone in a converted farm house in suburban Maryland, and likes it that way. When a woman asks him to investigate the murder of her grandson who police think was killed by a gang in a drug-related crime, he's pulled out of his shell. He encounters the boy's teacher, Sandra Winter, who awakens feelings he'd kept dormant since his wife's death. As he digs into the killing, he finds that there's more to it than the police thought, and in the process almost gets himself killed.This is the first in the Al Pennyback mystery series.