Trevor Wood concludes his ex-naval PTSD suffering Jimmy 'Sherlock Homeless' Mullen trilogy with a heartbreaking bang. Set in Newcastle, Jimmy's closest street friends are Gadge and Deano, they are the Three Musketeers. After the last book focused on Deano's harrowing past, here it is the alcoholic Gadge who takes centre stage, his poor health, he has suffered debilitating heart attacks but this does not stop his hard drinking. He has never talked about the trauma and losses he suffered that led to him becoming homeless, but when a number of homeless men are seriously attacked, there is a bar owner's website that claims the homeless are 'fakes', he wants to go after the vigilantes. He asks Jimmy to join him, but Jimmy is now in a different place, he has a job in 18-25 hostel, along with a flat that goes with it. He has far more too lose, and cannot afford to join Gadge.

Gadge ends up horrendously beaten up in an alley, covered in the blood of a murder victim, and a baseball bat in his hand. Gadge ends up being charged in murder and in prison, but his poor health and the challenging prison environment do not bode well, he will not survive long as he deteriorates to the state of a walking corpse. Jimmy is convinced Gadge is innocent, and knows he must get him out of prison as soon as possible as he becomes a investigator for Charlie Gascoigne, Gadge's lawyer. With the help of the likes of the wonderful librarian, Aoife, Maggie at the Pit Stop, Deano, and cop Andy Burns, whose life he saved, Jimmy starts to look for someone who has a motive in setting up Gadge for murder. As he follows various leads, life is made more complicated and dangerous when local hard man gangster, Stevie Connors, insists that he work for him for nothing, and Stevie is not a man you can say no to.

Wood's storytelling is dark and intense, highlighting the grim realities of being homeless in the age of political austerity, and just how easy it is to end up on a downward spiral away from the normal life of family, marriage, and work and end up living the hard and dangerous life of the streets. This is highlighted by Gadge's personal history, his marriage to the love of his life, Lucy, the sacrifices he made for her, his business ending up going down the pan, followed by the loss of his home. There is hope in the form of Jimmy, slowly addressing his PTSD and building ever stronger ties with his daughter, Kate, who is getting married to Carrie and wants him to give her away at the wedding, and this results in him getting back in touch with Bev, his ex-wife, but there is a sense that there is a part of him that misses the familiarity of being on the streets. This is a riveting addition to this wonderful series, with masses of suspense and tension, and a unique angle with its 'homeless' sleuth. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.