J.D. Allen’s second Sin City novel picks up where its predecessor, last year’s slightly overwrought 19 Souls, wound down.

Jim Bean (not his real name) is still working as a low-rent Las Vegas PI, grumbling, as always, about his lot in life—a life that had “added up to rent-to-own furniture and fast-food containers.” Mind you, he’s still getting his breakfast at The Coffee Girl, a dubious nearby vegan joint, and still bitching about it. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Is Vegas suffering from a lack of greasy spoons?

But that’s the kind of guy Jim is. He bemoans his “shit of a job, shit of a city” existence, and replays his cherished resentments constantly, fingering them like old war wounds.

Number one on his list of grievances? Ex-fiancée Erica Floyd.

She dumped him eight years ago, back in Boston when he was Korey Anders, accused by Gretchen Bates, a drunken college student, of sexual assault. He was promptly thrown in jail. Six weeks later, after Bates’ charges were dismissed, Jim was sprung. But by then Erica had taken a powder.

When the book opens, Jim’s painting a dumpster in the hot sun; a cover for keeping an eye on a suspect. He’s sweating, his back’s hurting, and he’s been doing it for days. And then, out of the blue, who should show up at the suspect’s door?

“Erica fucking Floyd.”

Jim, of course, knows it would be stupid to get involved with her again.

Naturally, he gets involved.

Turns out Erica’s little sister Chris, a social worker and part-time stripper, has disappeared. Jim tentatively agrees to help. Erica seduces him. Erica lies. Jim simmers. Erica lies again. Jim simmers some more. And gradually he and Erica follow an action-packed (if relatively predictable) trail through assorted thugs, human traffickers, and strip joints (of course) to rescue Chris.

And Jim simmers some more.

There’s no law that you have to like a protagonist, but Jim’s tormented life is beginning to seem more and more like a self-inflicted wound.