Part of Isaac Bell, book 8
First published 2015
Van Dorn private detective Isaac Bell pursues a government contract to probe John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil empire. The assignment turns lethal when a mysterious sniper starts eliminating Standard Oil's critics with impossible long-range shots. The killer murders Bell's key witness, then triggers an explosion that incinerates an independent refinery. Bell mobilizes his top investigators to track the phantom assassin. The murders escalate through shootings, poisonings, and orchestrated accidents as Bell follows his elusive target across America's oil boom territories in Kansas and Texas, into the corridors of Washington D.C., through New York's wealthy circles, and finally to Russia's battle-scarred Baku oil fields beside the Caspian Sea. The pursuit culminates in a return to American soil for a climactic showdown that promises to be the most dangerous confrontation of Bell's career.
Genres: historical-fiction, adventure, mystery, thriller, action
Vibes: fast-paced, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: cat-and-mouse, detective-story, pursuit
Setting: America, Baku, Kansas, New York, Russia, Texas, Washington D.C.
Period: 20th-century
409 pages · Hardcover · G.P. Putnam's Sons