He looks at outcasts, lovers and criminals, setting his narratives in tunes that aim for classic American simplicity while detailing an uncertain moral landscape.
Scientists at the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine knew they were treading on uncertain moral ground when they proposed mixing eggs and sperm to create human embryos for experiments.
The urban cowboy pausing to light a cigarette on a New York street in Robert Frank's 1954 photograph is a dude of uncertain moral fiber.
He sets his narratives in country and rockabilly tunes that aim for classic American simplicity, though his words detail an uncertain moral landscape.
It is the portrayal of a clash between an old world of rigid religious codes, duels, fixed gender roles and strict class division and a new world of divorce, separation, custody battles, women's self-determination and uncertain moral rules.
That's exactly the kind of exotic compound destined to attract the greedy attention of an evil pharmaceutical corporation, and soon one based in New York has sent an expedition in search of it, led by a coolly calculating scientist (Matthew Marsden, whose uncertain moral status is suggested by his posh British accent).
But in "Uncertain Glory" the moral ambivalence of the Flynn character is real and fully dramatized.
You can sort of see why they're doing this: Cyprus is a money haven, especially for the assets of Russian beeznessmen; this means that it has a hugely oversized banking sector (think Iceland) and that a haircut-free bailout would be seen as a bailout, not just of Cyprus, but of Russians of, let's say, uncertain probity and moral character.
Rebus's position, as ever, is one of subversive compliance, and, although he and Fox don't become bosom pals, they do manage enough of an alliance for a mutual scramble across the thin ice of uncertain knowledge and moral relativity to a resolution.
