Detective Liam Mulligan faces quite a few obstacles in The Dread Line, the fifth and most recent installment of Bruce DeSilva’s award-winning mystery series. Set in Providence, DeSilva’s plots are drawn from local culture – the last two were about sports gambling and newspaper layoffs – and The Dread Line features Mulligan getting involved with the New England Patriots, who in the wake of the Aaron Hernandez murder want him to vet a potential draft prospect. The trouble is that Mulligan already knows the kid from his sideline in the gambling world.