First published 2013
Scott McGrath discovers Ashley Cordova's body in a Manhattan warehouse on a wet October evening. The 24-year-old's death gets labeled suicide, but the veteran investigative journalist smells something wrong. Ashley was the daughter of Stanislaus Cordova, a cult horror filmmaker who vanished from public view three decades ago. McGrath sees a pattern in deaths tied to the Cordova family. He teams up with two unlikely allies to dig into the director's secretive world. McGrath tried exposing Cordova once before and paid dearly. That investigation cost him his marriage and career. Now he risks losing much more as he gets pulled deeper into the mystery. The filmmaker's dark movies are famous, but the man himself remains an enigma. McGrath's search for truth becomes personal, driven by both curiosity and a desire for revenge.
Genres: mystery, crime, contemporary, thriller
Vibes: dark, emotional, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: investigation, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Manhattan, New York
Period: 21st-century
599 pages · Hardcover · Bond Street Books
Content warnings: death, suicide