From the award-winning author of the Garrison Gage series, comes a gripping new mystery that buckles you in from the first car ride and never lets go.

After flaming out of MIT in a blaze of bad choices, Ashton Byrd reinvents himself in Los Angeles as a financial advisor to the rich and clueless (while taking a tidy cut for himself, of course). Got a huge monkey on your back? Rule one: don't take life seriously. Rule two: see rule one.

But when the sun-kissed playboy reluctantly returns to his soggy Oregon hometown, life gets serious in a hurry. Like fresh corpse serious.

Larry O'Conner-private investigator, his father's former partner, and Ash's honorary uncle-turns up dead. On top of that, something important has gone missing. Not "the valet misplaced my car keys" important. More like "end of the world as we know it" important. And powerful people want it back.

Now Ash is dodging bullets, bad memories, and the long shadow of his larger-than-life father while trying to figure out what Uncle Larry died protecting. Plus he can't do it alone. To solve the case-and finally shake the monkey off his back-he'll need help from Stephanie "The Streak" Hart, who may start as his surly Uber driver but soon proves to be a valuable asset. Tough. Brave. And with a trunkful of secrets of her own.