Another exhilarating thriller from Edgar Award winner David Ellis, introducing the new series protagonist Jason Kolarich.
Jason Kolarich is a midwestern Everyman with a linemanβs build and an easy smart-ass remark. Heβs a young, intelligent maverick, but heβs also struggling with an overwhelming emotional burdenβone that threatens to unravel his own life, and possibly the lives of those around him.
Twenty-seven years ago, two-year-old Audrey Cutler disappeared from her home in the middle of the night. She was never found. All the detectives had to go on were vague eyewitness accounts of a man running down the Cutlersβ street, apparently carrying someone. Without enough evidence to suggest otherwise, Griffin Perliniβa neighbor with prior offenses against minorsβwas arrested, but never convicted.
The case is long closed when Perlini is murdered nearly thirty years later. Now a man named Mr. Smith appears in Jason Kolarichβs office, saying only that he represents a third party who wants the man charged with murder off the hook and that Kolarich is perfect for the job. The new client: Audrey Cutlerβs older brother, SammyβKolarichβs estranged childhood best friendβa man he hasnβt seen in nearly twenty years.
But when Kolarich starts receiving violent threats from Mr. Smithβs enigmatic employer, he figures out that the secrecy behind this nameless third partyβand the key to winning Sammyβs caseβis entangled with the mystery of Audreyβs disappearance. With his own life and Sammyβs in the balance, Kolarich has to put aside not only the mounting anxiety of the job but also a heart-wrenching personal tragedy in order to find out what really happened to Audrey all those years ago.
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