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From the author of New York Times Notable book The Ice Harvest, a cult classic of Western noir set in a 19th century Kansas frontier town rocked by a series of brutal murders Introducing photographer and saloon owner Bill Ogden. Perfect for fans of Deadwood and JustifiedIn 1872, Cottonwood, Kansas, is a one-horse speck on the map; a community of run-down farms, dusty roads, and two-bit crooks. Self-educated saloon owner and photographer Bill Ogden looks on his adopted town with an eye to making a profit or getting out. His brains and ambition bring him to the attention of one Marc Leval, a wealthy Chicago developer with big plans for the small town. The advent of the railroad and rumors of a cattle trail turn Cottonwood into a wild and wooly boomtown—and with Leval as a partner, Ogden dreams of bringing civilization to the prairie.But civilizing the Great Plains was never that simple. While many in Cottonwood distrust Leval's motives, and mob violence threatens to derail the town's dreams of greatness, Ogden finds himself dangerously obsessed with Leval's stunningly beautiful wife. Meanwhile, plying its sinister trade unnoticed, an apparently ordinary local farm family quietly butchers traveling salesmen, weary travelers, and other unsuspecting wanderers.In his own inimitable brand of narrative wizardry, Scott Phillips traces the metamorphosis of a frontier town that becomes a lightning rod for sin, corruption, and murder. He also brings to life actual crimes that befell Kansas in the 1870s and 1880s, carried out by a strange clan who popularly became known as the Bloody Benders. Brilliantly written, maliciously fun, and full of many surprises, Cottonwood is historical fiction at its finest.

In this standalone, Edgar-award winning author, Joe R. Lansdale, whom'few can match'(Booklist) beams a light on an East Texas town where a QAnon-style, evangelist cult is brewing trouble. Charlie Garner has a bad feeling. His ex-wife, Meg, has been missing for over a week and one quick peek into her home shows all her possessions packed up in boxes. Neighbors claim she's running from bill collectors, but Charlie suspects something more sinister is afoot. Meg was last seen working at the local donut shop, a business run by a shadow group most refer to as ‘The Saucer People'; a space-age, evangelist cult who believe their compound to be the site of an extraterrestrial Second Coming. Along with his brother, Felix, and beautiful, randy journalist Amelia “Scrappy” Moon, Charlie uncovers strange and frightening details about the compound (read: a massive, doomsday storehouse of weapons, a leashed chimpanzee!) When the body of their key informer is found dead with his arms ripped out of their sockets, Charlie knows he's in danger but remains dogged in his quest to rescue Meg. Brimming with colorful characters and Lansdale's characteristic bounce, this rollicking crime novel examines the insidious rise of fringe groups and those under their sway with black comedy and glints of pathos.

Pursued by labor traffickers, Paula Jessup desperately needs someone in her corner. Her unlikely savior is an aging bouncer with early-onset dementia, grappling with his own ghosts. All they have to do is trust each other.At first glance, Paula thinks she's found her protector in sixty-four-year-old Joe Pendergast, a famous bouncer in Hampton Roads. Even though he is ancient by her standards - sixty-four years old and counting - he still packs a punch. He's more than a match for the traffickers who want to find her. But then she learns Joe has been diagnosed with early-onset dementia. She also discovers he was much more than a bouncer. He worked as an enforcer and collector for a local loan shark for more than forty years. He has been cut loose due to his dementia diagnosis, and now he's plotting to kill his old boss before the disease takes him.

San Francisco is on the verge of collapse in this gritty, grimy noir set in a near-future that gets closer every second. Former San Francisco Literary Laureate Peter Plate who taught himself to write fiction during eight years squatting in abandoned buildings, delivers a fast-paced dystopian and speculative novel — the latest in a hardboiled writing career that spans the era of out-of-control gentrification in the Bay Area.California is on fire. Everyone has the virus. Sinister patrols of SWAT teams seem to materialize out of thin air, and if you're not careful, you'll end up exiled down in Bakersfield.In the middle of it all, the nearly thirteen-year-old narrator in Night of the Short Eyes must take care of his mess of a family—Dad is in jail for stealing guns with his partner, Ronnie, and Mom is shacking up with the social worker assigned to the family's case—and he only has one thing to his advantage: he speaks perfect English. Refugees from Russia stream into San Francisco as our narrator approaches his next birthday. His younger brother (nicknamed Putin, “on account of his broken English and heavy accent.”) seems determined to make trouble if he cannot find it himself, which shouldn't be hard when even crossing the street is a walk on the dangerous side. In this world of worsening climate disasters, and set against the backdrop of a cold war that never ended, Night of the Short Eyes, the new book from Peter Plate may be his most outrageous novel yet. Written with lyrical grace and propulsive momentum, Plate's latest vision of California is so warped that it just might come to pass.

Denver enters the Noir Series arena with a wide range of mile-high misgivings and perils.• Winner of the 2023 Colorado Book Award, Anthology'Denver has a dark side. And more than a dozen local authors are telling you all about it... Together, in Denver Noir, these authors pen a diverse look at the underside of Denver.'—Denver Post'This anthology of short fictional crime and suspense stories written by 14 local authors and edited by Cynthia Swanson tells hair-raising, spine-tingling tales set in Denver's unique neighborhoods. Follow felons down Colfax, solve a murder mystery and root for runaways as you flip through the pages, but be warned—the book's final words may haunt you even after you turn out the lights.'—Denver Life MagazineBrand-new stories by: Peter Heller, Barbara Nickless, Cynthia Swanson, Mario Acevedo, Francelia Belton, R. Alan Brooks, D.L. Cordero, Amy Drayer, Twanna LaTrice Hill, Manuel Ramos, Mark Stevens, Mathangi Subramanian, David Heska Wanbli Weiden, and Erika T. Wurth. From the Introduction by Cynthia Swanson:'Even a city that boasts three hundred days of sunshine a year has its sudden, often violent storms—and writers have long taken advantage of that metaphor. Renowned authors Katherine Anne Porter, Jack Kerouac, Stephen King, Rex Burns, Robert Greer, Michael Connelly, and Kali Fajardo-Anstine—among many others—have brilliantly portrayed this picturesque but often merciless city. Today, Denver is home to a thriving literary scene, with writers of all stripes finding inspiration in its people and streets. The authors and stories featured in Denver Noir are no exception...'Editing Denver Noir, working with this talented group of writers, has been one of the highlights of my career. Fans of noir and Denver devotees alike, I invite you into this journey of our Mile High City, our home beside the mountains, our capital of sunshine and darkness, optimism and anguish.'

The hitman hero of the acclaimed series Quarry on Cinemax returns for his final act. By Quarry's creator, the award-winning author of Road to Perdition!QUARRY'S VIOLENT PAST COMES LOOKING FOR HIMThe professional hitman known as Quarry -- star of the Cinemax TV miniseries of the same name -- has put killing behind him. But after a beautiful writer of true-crime bestsellers drops by to announce he's the subject of her next book, killers descend to give him some of his own deadly medicine, forcing Quarry to journey into his bloody past to find the answers -- and settle old scores.QUARRY'S BLOOD brings the hitman's decades-long saga right up to the present day as MWA Grand Master Max Allan Collins explores the startling final act of Quarry's professional career.

“Like the best noir practitioners, Murphy uses the mystery as scaffolding to assemble a world of fallen dreams and doom-bitten characters... Murphy's hard-boiled rendering of the city is nothing short of exquisite... For anyone who wants a portrait of this New York, few recent books have conjured it so vividly.” —The New York Times Book Review, Editors'Choice• A Best Book of the Year from The New Yorker, LitHub, CrimeReads, and more!A sharp and stylish debut from the editor-in-chief of CrimeReads in which an unwitting private eye gets caught up in a crime of obsession between a reclusive literary superstar and her bookseller husband, paying homage to the noir genre just as smartly as it reinvents itAfter leaving behind the comforts and the shackles of a prestigious law firm, a restless attorney makes ends meet in mid-2000s Brooklyn by picking up odd jobs from a colorful assortment of clients. When a mysterious woman named Anna Reddick turns up at his apartment with ten thousand dollars in cash and asks him to track down her missing husband Newton, an antiquarian bookseller who she believes has been pilfering rare true crime volumes from her collection, he trusts it will be a quick and easy case. But when the real Anna Reddick—a magnetic but unpredictable literary prodigy—lands on his doorstep with a few bones to pick, he finds himself out of his depth, drawn into a series of deceptions involving Joseph Conrad novels, unscrupulous booksellers, aspiring flâneurs, and seedy real estate developers. Set against the backdrop of New York at the tail end of the analog era and immersed in the worlds of literature and bookselling, An Honest Living is a gripping story of artistic ambition, obsession, and the small crimes we commit against one another every day.

Has Nolan met his match? MWA Grandmaster Max Allan Collins'veteran thief faces off against a cold-blooded femme fatale in this double-length adventure originally published as two complete novels and unavailable in stores for three decades.'Pulp fiction doesn't get much better.'Sunday Times SOMETIMES YOU BURY THE PAST. SOMETIMES IT BURIES YOU. Every professional thief knows you never return to the scene of a crime. But what if you're forced to? In this intense heist story – appearing in bookstores for the first time in three decades – MWA Grandmaster Max Allan Collins brings veteran thief Nolan and his young partner in crime Jon back to rob the same bank they targeted in their debut novel, TWO FOR THE MONEY, at the behest of an embezzling executive and a femme fatale with dollar signs where her soul should be. And those aren't the only figures resurfacing from the past either – the ruthless Comfort clan is back to even old scores, and some members of the Outfit are packing bullets with Nolan's name on them. With all these forces marshalled against him, can even the toughest professional hardcase come out on top?

From the Goncourt Prize–winning author of And Their Children After Them, a devilishly smart noir novella that finds uncomfortable truths in the everyday about romance, violence, and women's desire and desirability.Nearing fifty, with a divorce and a string of other failed relationships behind her, Rose has given up on the idea of love, if not sex—though that always comes with risks. Determined not to let another man hurt her, she even ordered a.38 caliber handgun after an argument with her latest boyfriend almost turned violent. Now she carries it everywhere, just in case. As if on autopilot, Rose spends her days at work and then at the Royal, a familiar haunt where she knocks back one drink after another, sometimes with her best friend Marie-Jeanne. And then a sudden accident brings Luc into the bar, and Rose decides to give love one last chance.

The hitman hero of the acclaimed series Quarry on Cinemax returns for his final act. By Quarry's creator, the award-winning author of Road to Perdition! QUARRY'S VIOLENT PAST COMES LOOKING FOR HIM The professional hitman known as Quarry -- star of the Cinemax TV miniseries of the same name -- has put killing behind him. But after a beautiful writer of true-crime bestsellers drops by to announce he's the subject of her next book, killers descend to give him some of his own deadly medicine, forcing Quarry to journey into his bloody past to find the answers -- and settle old scores. QUARRY'S BLOOD brings the hitman's decades-long saga right up to the present day as MWA Grand Master Max Allan Collins explores the startling final act of Quarry's professional career.

She got away once, but will LA detective Sam Carver let killer Dylan Cross escape again?Los Angeles is not itself. Rain falls hard every day. Homeless men are set on fire in their tents. Detective Sam Carver chases leads into a maze of militias and neo-Nazis. But before he gets too deep into the case, a past that has haunted him for years returns in the name of Dylan Cross. The killer who got away. Carver knows she has murdered again, but no one believes him. She leaves him clues, writes him notes, tempts him. She wants him to betray everything he is. He is drawn to her by the damage and demons they both carry. But he is certain that when they meet again, only one will survive. This is a love story of delusion and obsession, and how the dark things we desire reveal the truths that made us.

Following the success of Paris Noir, the Akashic Noir Series has expanded to include the famously diverse and sometimes controversial suburbs of this legendary city.'A treasure chest of resources for any noir author seeking a more gruesome approach or a more relentless destruction of the soul. One might hope the real Paris suburbs are not so dark and blood drenched. But by the end of the collection, that hope seems almost foolish, and the body found on the quay seems to be the lucky guy in the story.'—New York Journal of Books'The short stories center on the suburbs of Paris, fertile soil for all sorts of resentment and violence....For lovers of crime noir short fiction, these are 12 stories of life lived in the raw.'—Library Journal'Dark tales shine a bright light on some little-seen parts of greater Paris.'—Kirkus Reviews'Paris's suburbs—a mix of slums, posh neighborhoods, fading industrial centers, and the city's notorious housing projects that lie out of the sight of most tourists—provide the setting for [these] 13 tales.'—Publishers WeeklyFeaturing brand-new stories by: Cloé Mehdi, Karim Madani, Insa Sané, Christian Roux, Marc Villard, Jean-Pierre Rumeau, Timothée Demeillers, Rachid Santaki, Marc Fernandez, Guillaume Balsamo, Anne Secret, Anne-Sylvie Salzman, and Patrick Pécherot. (All stories were written in French and translated into English by Katie Shireen Assef, David Ball, Nicole Ball, and Paul Curtis Daw.)From the introduction by Hervé Delouche:The term Greater Paris is in vogue today, for it has an administrative cachet and seems to denote a simple extension of the capital—as if a ravenous Paris need only extend her web. However, it was not our goal to embrace the tenets of the metro area's comprehensive plan, aka the Grand Projet, envisioned as a future El Dorado by the planners and developers. Rather, our aim was to depict the Parisian suburbs in all their plurality and diversity. Without pretending to encompass every spot on the map, we instead opted to give voice and exposure to the localities chosen by the writers who have been part of this adventure. Thus, we decided to adopt the word “suburbs”— in the plural, obviously, for the periphery of the capital is not a homogeneous bloc, nor is it reducible to a cliché like “the suburban ring”... Here are thirteen stories, decidedly noir, to be savored without sugar or sweetener.

In James Ellroy's riveting second novel, an ambitious beat cop is hot on the trail of a serial killer who frequents L.A. dive bars and preys on the fallen women he finds there.Los Angeles, 1951. For Officer Fred Underhill, the job is all about the wonder, an elusive quality he finds while dealing with the city's drunks, hopheads, gunsels, and burglars. When he's not reveling in the glory of cleaning up the streets, he's on the green or scoring women. But Underhill's ambition and allegiance to the badge get the better of him when a grim opportunity to prove his worth arises. Catching a serial strangler who is snuffing out women would all but ensure his place at the top. As he climbs his way up, the hungry rookie wheels and deals with some of the force's most unscrupulous officers, and when the case goes sideways and fast, the eyes of the very law he serves will be trained on him. Now Underhill's only chance to redeem himself is to pick up the trail of the soulless killer and close the case himself.

Unabúsquedafrenéticaenuna ciudadasoladapor laenfermedad. En medio de un Madrid asolado por el virus, el detective Ulises Lombardi recibe el encargo de encontrar a un anciano centenario que ha desaparecido. El anciano posee una clave secreta que conecta con el pasado de Lombardi, guerrillero en la Argentina de su juventud, que marchó al exilio tras conocer la tortura y el horror. Se inicia así una carrera contrarreloj que el detective lleva a cabo junto a Sara, joven pelirroja, osada y absolutamente libre. Mientras el mundo parece sumirse en el apocalipsis, ambos recorren la ciudad en busca de respuestas. Durante laplaga es una novela que recupera los elementos clásicos del género negro y los actualiza. Con un estilo envolvente lleno de referencias, Daniel Serrano construye un relato de derrotas, fracasos, desencanto, muertes y también amor. «Imposible dejar de leer una vez lo empiezas. Adictivo». Ana García-Siñeriz Lacrítica hadichosobre Cal viva: «Resultará imposible perder el hilo del relato o seguirlo a plazos, habida cuenta de la habilidad y el poder narrativo de la prosa de Daniel Serrano». Juan Luis Cebrián, El País,Babelia «Cal vivaposee un lirismo sustancioso que hace de ella una novela generacional distinta». Sonia Fides, Elasombrario

A classic Mike Hammer story from the New York Times bestselling authors Max Allan Collins and the master of noir Mickey Spillane, featuring a brand-new, never before seen, alternative ending. Recuperating in Florida after the mob shoot-out that nearly claimed his life, Mike Hammer learns that an old mentor on the New York police force has committed suicide. Hammer returns for the funeral—and because he knows that Inspector Doolan would never have killed himself. When a woman is murdered practically on the funeral's doorstep, Hammer is drawn into the hunt for a cache of Nazi diamonds and for the mysterious woman who had been close to Doolan in his final days. Everything leads to a Mafia social club where Hammer and his.45 come calling, initiating the wildest showdown since Spillane's classic One Lonely Night.

The Good Turn is the highly anticipated third book in the Cormac Reilly Series, which began with the acclaimed The Ruin and The Scholar.Winner of the 2022 Barry Award for Best Original PaperbackSome lines should never be crossed.Police corruption, an investigation that ends in tragedy, and the mystery of a little girl's silence—three unconnected events that will prove to be linked by one small town.While Detective Cormac Reilly faces enemies at work and trouble in his personal life, Garda Peter Fisher is relocated out of Galway with the threat of prosecution hanging over his head. But even that is not as terrible as having to work for his overbearing father, the local copper for the pretty seaside town of Roundstone.For some, like Anna and her young daughter, Tilly, Roundstone is a refuge from trauma. But even this village on the edge of the sea isn't far enough to escape from the shadows of evil men.

Winner of the 2022 Edgar Award for Best Novel'War, imprisonment, torture, romance…The novel has an almost operatic symmetry, and Kestrel turns a beautiful phrase.'-New York Times Five Decembers is a gripping thriller, a staggering portrait of war, and a heartbreaking love story, as unforgettable as All the Light We Cannot See. NOMINATED FOR BEST THRILLER IN THE 2022 BARRY AWARDS FINALIST FOR THE HAMMETT PRIZE 2021'Read this book for its palpitating story, its perfect emotional and physical detailing and, most of all, for its unforgettable conjuring of a steamy quicksilver world that will be new to almost every reader.'- Pico Iyer December 1941. America teeters on the brink of war, and in Honolulu, Hawaii, police detective Joe McGrady is assigned to investigate a homicide that will change his life forever. Because the trail of murder he uncovers will lead him across the Pacific, far from home and the woman he loves; and though the U.S. doesn't know it yet, a Japanese fleet is already steaming toward Pearl Harbor. This extraordinary novel is so much more than just a gripping crime story—it's a story of survival against all odds, of love and loss and the human cost of war. Spanning the entirety of World War II, FIVE DECEMBERS is a beautiful, masterful, powerful novel that will live in your memory forever

A CrimeReads'Best Noir Novel of 2021''A sucker punch noir that is also a powerful and haunting allegory of work, debt, and power.'—Richard Price'An unreliable narrator makes this thriller all the more gripping.'— WBUR A down and dirty gem of a tale—a twisty and twisted crime novel that evokes the worlds of George V. Higgins, Patricia Highsmith, and David Mamet, destined to be a Neo-noir classic. Rick and Frank are recovering addicts and accomplished house thieves. They do not steal randomly - - they steal according to order, hired by a mysterious handler. The jobs run routinely until they're tasked with taking a seemingly worthless trophy: an object that generates interest and obsession out of proportion to its apparent value. Just as the robbery is completed, the two are involved in a freak car accident that sets off a chain of events and Frank disappears with the trophy. As Rick tries to find Frank, he is forced to confront his past, upending both his livelihood and his sense of reality. The narrative builds steadily into a powerful and shocking climax. Reveling in its con-artistry and double-crosses, Just Thieves is a nail-biting, noirish exploration of the working lives of two unforgettable crooks and the hidden forces that rule and ruin their lives.

Family secrets, terrorist plots and the return of a legendary cop: a ferociously paced noir thriller from one of Italy's top crime writers, and the second book in Pushkin Press's collaboration with Walter PresentsAnnibale Canessa didn't want to go back to his old life. When everything went wrong in 1984, he traded his brutal, exciting career in the Carabinieri for paradise in San Fruttuoso. He started swimming in the bay at dawn and helping his elderly aunt run a small restaurant. His life was calm.But some shattering news pulls him back in - his estranged brother has been found dead; lying beside him, the body of an ex-terrorist, a man Canessa himself caught. Back in Milan, Canessa must pursue old connections and unsolved crimes, which draw him ever deeper into the underworld he thought he'd left behind...

The first new Nolan novel in 33 years from one of the masters of the genre, Max Allan Collins, award-winning author of Road to Perdition.The onetime world-class thief Nolan - now happily gone straight with his own restaurant/nightclub - whisks his longtime lover Sherry off to Vegas for a trip to a wedding chapel and a honeymoon stay. But an eye-in-the-sky security cam at a casino spots Nolan, whose past catches up with him when he's thought to be casing the joint. An old'friend'sees Nolan as the perfect patsy for a scheme to heist the weekly skim haul, and when the former thief's young frequent accomplice, Jon - a musician in the casino's house band - finds the couple mysteriously, suspiciously missing, it's up to Nolan's Best Man to keep wedding bells from tolling a funeral march.

In this timeless, mythical tale of unforgiving justice and elusive grace, rural Mississippi townsfolk shoulder the pain of generations as something dangerous lurks in the enigmatic kudzu of the woods.The town of Red Bluff, Mississippi, has seen better days, though those who've held on have little memory of when that was. Myer, the county's aged, sardonic lawman, still thinks it can prove itself -- when confronted by a strange family of drifters, the sheriff believes that the people of Red Bluff can be accepting, rational, even good.The opposite is true: this is a landscape of fear and ghosts -- of regret and violence -- transformed by the kudzu vines that have enveloped the hills around it, swallowing homes, cars, rivers, and hiding a terrible secret deeper still.Colburn, a junkyard sculptor who's returned to Red Bluff, knows this pain all too well, though he too is willing to hope for more when he meets and falls in love with Celia, the local bar owner. The Deep South gives these noble, broken, and driven folks the gift of human connection while bestowing upon them the crippling weight of generations. With broken histories and vagabond hearts, the townsfolk wrestle with the evil in the woods -- and the wickedness that lurks in each and every one of us.

Accra joins Lagos, Nairobi, Marrakech, and Addis Ababa in representing the African continent in the Noir Series arena.'The anthology Accra Noir edited by Nana-Ama Danquah captures the hustle of several distinctive neighborhoods of Ghana's capital.'--The Millions, included in Nadia Owusu's Year in Reading (2020)'Thirteen tales of the trouble people find in the capital city of Ghana when they're trying to make a buck...There's plenty of noir to go around in this all-too-sad volume about people struggling to get by.'--Kirkus Reviews, Starred review'This spine-chilling 13-story collection offers an opportunity to'consider the context, beware of a pretext, search for a subtext'on living--and dying--in a major metropolis consumed by poverty and desperation.'--Shelf Awareness for Readers, STARRED Review'Superb...Each story reaffirms how fundamental'place'is to the noir genre and how the locale shapes the story as much as the characters themselves...Strongly recommended.'--Library Journal'This welcome volume in the Akashic noir series, set in Ghana, hits plenty of the expected bleak notes and classical noirish phrasings.'--Publishers Weekly'There's good writing as well as a strong sense of place and culture, and the reader will absorb a side of Accra that doesn't make it into the tourist brochures.'--New York Journal of Books'Within this new book, the authors who share their many stories do so in a much revealing way about Accra, a city of allegories, one of the most dynamic and diverse places in the world.'--Exclusive Magazine“I was blown away by these stories, and would encourage lovers of noir fiction to try these out. They are gritty enough to fill your noir needs.”--The CyberlibrarianAkashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each book comprises all new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city.Brand-new stories by: Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond, Kwame Dawes, Adjoa Twum, Kofi Blankson Ocansey, Billie McTernan, Ernest Kwame Nkrumah Addo, Patrick Smith, Anne Sackey, Gbontwi Anyetei, Nana-Ama Danquah, Ayesha Harruna Attah, Eibhlín Ní Chléirigh, and Anna Bossman.From the introduction by Nana-Ama Danquah:Accra is the perfect setting for noir fiction. The telling of such tales--ones involving or suggesting death, with a protagonist who is flawed or devious, driven by either a self-serving motive or one of the seven deadly sins--is woven into the fabric of the city's everyday life...Accra is more than just a capital city. It is a microcosm of Ghana. It is a virtual map of the nation's soul, a complex geographical display of its indigenous presence, the colonial imposition, declarations of freedom, followed by coups d'état, decades of dictatorship, and then, finally, a steady march forward into a promising future...Much like Accra, these stories are not always what they seem. The contributors who penned them know too well how to spin a story into a web...It is an honor and a pleasure to share them and all they reveal about Accra, a city of allegories, one of the most dynamic and diverse places in the world.

Ex-mob enforcer-turned-private investigator Isaiah Coleridge pits himself against a rich and powerful foe when he digs into a possible murder and a sketchy real-estate deal worth billions.Ex-majordomo and bodyguard to an industrial tycoon-cum-U.S. senator, Badja Adeyemi is in hiding and shortly on his way to either a jail cell or a grave, depending on who finds him first. In his final days as a free man, he hires Isaiah Coleridge to tie up a loose end: the suspicious death of his nephew four years earlier. At the time police declared it an accident, and Adeyemi isn't sure it wasn't, but one final look may bring his sister peace.So it is that Coleridge and his investigative partner, Lionel Robard, find themselves in the upper reaches of New York State, in a tiny town that is home to outsized secrets and an unnerving cabal of locals who are protecting them. At the epicenter of it all is the site of a stalled supercollider project, an immense subterranean construction that may have an even deeper, more insidious purpose....