For his next hardboiled outing, P.I. Frank Johnson takes up investigating the violent death of Roz Fleming. A local prostitute, she's been found dead from two headshots behind the local truck stop on a February morning. Roz's older sister, Hallie, incensed and desperate, approaches Frank to investigate Roz's grisly murder. Since the state cops, led by Sergeant Collingsworth, show only feeble interest in resolving "the whore's homicide," Frank agrees to take Hallie's case.
As Frank probes deeper into Roz Fleming's death, he leans on his long-time friend and business partner, Gerald Peyton; his medical examiner wife, Dreema; and his brilliant but outspoken attorney, Robert Gatlin. Frank follows a dark, twisty trail of double-crosses, bloodier homicides, and uglier depravity. The final stage of his pursuit takes him to a ruined mansion on the outskirts of Pelham, where he learns the shocking truth.
Critically acclaimed crime novelist James Crumley endorsed the P.I. Frank Johnson Mystery Series. "With a plot as complex as your grandmother's crocheted doilies, Mr. Lynskey creates a portrait of the rural hill country that rings as true as the clank of a Copenhagen can on a PBR can, as does his handle on guns, love, and betrayal. This novel is well worth the read and makes me want more."
#1 New York Times bestselling author James Rollins states, "Ed Lynskey's P.I. Frank Johnson's books are as hard-bitten and hard-boiled as they come. The dialogue crackles with such sharpness that you'd swear sparks were jumping off the pages. And P.I. Frank Johnson is a character cut from the Tarantino mold: tough, wounded, conflicted, and badass."
New York Times bestselling author and Edgar Award-winning author Megan Abbott writes the P.I. Frank Johnson mystery series, which "bears the richest nicotine and bourbon stains of the hardboiled genre, yet also bristles with vitality. The plot sings, the characters are twisty and textured, and the violence is brutal but inevitable. These elements would be more than enough, yet Ed Lynskey offers so much more in the form of a perfectly pitched prose style that swings effortlessly from back-country grit to Appalachian poetry and back again."
