But it’s a bit more complex than just that, especially for Rachel, of course. I thought, when I was reading it at times: Ed’s goin’ soft on us, he’s having Ethan fall in love, aw. So: It's a kind of straightforward crime story, a topical expose, and a kind of romance. So Ethan, who always claims he has no feelings, but clearly cares for (though not romantically) and shelters his co-worker Anna, also has rage about child sexual abuse, and-as it turns out-love for Rachel. Child self-trafficking figures in the story as well.

And Ethan, who admits to her that he makes up his own laws, follows her down this path, assisting her in her goals. The 1989 San Francisco earthquake hits and something in this moment triggers (shakes?) Rachel to revenge. The story is possibly the most straightforward of all the Criminal stories, in that Ethan finds Rachel as a favor for a friend, whom we later discover had been the victim of child incest from her brothers. I am excited to identify an Easter egg already in the title, Bob Dylan’s version of “Baby, Won’t You Follow Me Down,” which I think the media/cultural history-savvy Brubaker has in mind, so listen to it and I urge you to play it if you have a guitar around (you begin in G):

As Brubaker says in his afterword, in the old days you might have published them together, with front and back covers for the separate books. In the continuing (2019-) Criminal series, #5, Follow Me Down, we get a story parallel in time to the last volume, The Ghost in You, which saw Ethan Reckless out of town as his assistant Anna solved her own case, and in this one we find out what was happening with Reckless when the last volume was taking place.

Reckless follow me down brubaker