Tangled up in Blue by Joan D. Vinge

I picked this one up solely because of the author’s name (having read her short story Fireship, which I loved), not knowing it was a sequel. Despite that, it works; there is enough exposition in the action to make the world comprehensible. A group of cops, frustrated with their inability to make a dent in the trafficking of illegal items due to governmental corruption, have taken up the habit of vigilante justice on certain special days - namedays. Unfortunately, on the protagonist’s nameday, the vigilante bust goes very bad very fast, and the protagonist is the only one of the group to survive. Memory lost to the trauma, he has to figure out who to trust and how to survive what is obviously a widespread conspiracy. Excellently woven with clean, descriptive prose, this book has me wanting to get the rest of the Snow Queen saga as soon as possible.