The Shape of an Innocent Man

By Thomas Barnett

He went to dinner expecting his partner. He arrived with an hour missing.

In 1995, Randy Wright's partner is thirty minutes late for dinner. By morning, David is missing-and Randy has a scratch on his wrist, industrial soap beneath his nails, and more than an hour he cannot remember.

The police dismiss the disappearance as a private matter between two men. Only Detective Carol Shelton takes the case seriously. But when David is found murdered at an abandoned rail yard, the investigation exposes a string of deaths the city preferred not to see-and a corrupt vice detective determined to keep the past buried.

Six months later, another man is killed during one of Randy's missing intervals. David's secret files connect the victims to the Lantern, a gay bar under police scrutiny. They also connect them to Randy.

As grief, memory, and evidence pull him in opposite directions, Randy must decide whether the man he loved was investigating a conspiracy, preparing to leave him, or trying to reveal a truth Randy has spent his life refusing to face.

The Shape of an Innocent Man is a psychological noir about love, shame, institutional betrayal, and the dangerous difference between being wronged and being innocent.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0H8QV1PT3
• ISBN13: 9798187156764
• Release Date: July 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 252 Pages
• Weight: 0.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"