First published 2024
Charles Swagger tracks Baby Face Nelson through Chicago's stockyards when a brutal assault reveals something worse than bank robbery. A new drug spreads through the 7th District, making some users euphoric, driving others mad, and killing the rest. His son Earl faces hostile silence investigating a deadly bank heist in small-town Maryland. The townspeople hide municipal corruption, gang politics, and aristocratic schemes behind their walls. Decades later, Bob Lee Swagger returns from Vietnam broken by whiskey and nightmares. Two men wake him with an urgent problem. A butcher stalks young women in Hot Springs as the city tries to shed its gambling reputation for family tourism. The local police are stumped. Bob protests he's a sniper, not a detective. But he carries the bloodline of two legendary investigators. He takes the hunt, using his sniper's precision to see what others miss. Each Swagger faces killers in his own era, but Bob Lee's pursuit becomes something more than justice. He hunts his own salvation.
Genres: mystery, crime, thriller, action
Vibes: fast-paced, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, family-secrets, redemption
Setting: Chicago, Hot Springs, Maryland, Vietnam
Period: 1930s, 1960s, 1970s
480 pages · ebook · Atria/Emily Bestler Books
Content warnings: drug-use, graphic-violence, murder