by Don Winslow
First published 2002
Jack Wade thought his days as a police officer were behind him. Now he works insurance fraud cases, hunting down false claims and suspicious fires. The work pays the bills and keeps him away from the complications of his former life. Then a routine arson investigation changes everything. The burned property belongs to a Russian mobster, and the insurance company Wade works for seems unusually eager to pay out the claim. Worse, his ex-girlfriend appears at the center of the case, dragging their shared history into his present troubles. Wade discovers the insurance company has connections to the same Russian criminal whose property went up in flames. What looked like a straightforward fraud case becomes a web of corruption that reaches from the streets to the corporate boardroom. Wade must navigate between his professional obligations and personal loyalties while powerful people want the investigation to disappear. The case forces him to confront not just external enemies but the choices that drove him away from police work and the woman he once loved.
Genres: mystery, crime, thriller, action
Vibes: fast-paced, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Russia
Period: 21st-century
396 pages · Paperback · Belfond
Content warnings: violence