Another exhilarating thriller from Edgar Award winner David Ellis, introducing the new series protagonist Jason Kolarich.
Jason Kolarich is a midwestern Everyman with a linemanโs build and an easy smart-ass remark. Heโs a young, intelligent maverick, but heโs also struggling with an overwhelming emotional burdenโone 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 Cutlersโ street, apparently carrying someone. Without enough evidence to suggest otherwise, Griffin Perliniโa neighbor with prior offenses against minorsโwas 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 Kolarichโs 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 Cutlerโs older brother, SammyโKolarichโs estranged childhood best friendโa man he hasnโt seen in nearly twenty years.
But when Kolarich starts receiving violent threats from Mr. Smithโs enigmatic employer, he figures out that the secrecy behind this nameless third partyโand the key to winning Sammyโs caseโis entangled with the mystery of Audreyโs disappearance. With his own life and Sammyโs 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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