"The Two Minute Rule" by Robert Crais was a very fun read.
It begins with a bank robbery in which the robbers are shot after trying to have a shootout with the police officers there to arrest them.
Then you meet Holman, a convicted bank robber about to be released from jail. But right before his release he is told his son, a police officer had been shot the night before.
Holman questions police about what happened, but not getting answers that add up leaves Holman to search for answers himself. He makes contact with the only people he knows—his old friend, Chee, another ex-convict—and FBI Agent Pollard—the one who helped lock him away in the first place.
Holman, the "Hero" bandit, is trying his best to stay clean, but as he digs deeper into this mystery of his sons murder, he finds himself slipping into old patterns in order to stay a free man and has several run-ins with the police who were doing the investigation on his son's murder although they say the case is closed.
Pollard helps Holman against her first instincts, because, after all, Holman was named the Hero bandit because he was caught robbing the bank because he couldn't let himself leave the bank with a guy having a heart attack and went back to save him by performing CPR.
As Pollard gets to know Holman, she comes to see more of this side of him, though he sometimes slips back into his old habits and has a terrible time keeping his temper under control.
Will they be able to find out what happened to Holman's son before their time runs out and the dirty cops they believe had something to do with the murders find them? Will Holman be able to stay out of trouble an remain a free man or will his grief and need to find out what happened to his son—and whether he was a good cop or followed in his father's footsteps—put him back in the slammer?
