In Necessary Evils, HAL, an L. A. cop driven to avenge the murder of his three partners, finds himself blindfolded and stripped to the waist, on his knees, his hands bound behind him, surrounded by a chorus of vigilantes—parents from all over America whose children have been killed by drugs—as they chant, "In adversity there is opportunity!" Their charismatic leader states their case: The country has turned its back on the people, supplying drugs that kill and killers who drug the people. "Where," he asks, "are the soldiers in the so-called war on drugs? We tell our children that drugs kill, so those who take them must die—and when they all do, there will be no more market for the drug trade." The vigilantes, it turns out, dress as cops, conduct their own drug raids, poison the stolen dope, sell it on the street, and use the profits to buy explosives and weapons for the civil war to come.

For the seemingly doomed HAL, unrelated details suddenly take shape: The mysterious drug deaths; CARL ROSS, pharaoh of the drug trade and killer of his partners; the diamond and the human finger discovered outside ANNE’S Venice Beach home.

Now, all that stands between HAL and his lust to avenge his friends’ murder are a pack of murderous, evangelically committed vigilantes, The ROSS army of killers, other cops who think HAL is a rat, the FBI—and his love for ANNE, an eccentric and beautiful librarian.

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Phillip Gardner has written a collection of short stories offered by Boson Books, Someone to Crawl Back To. You can also find short stories by Phillip on the Freebies page.