by Brad Meltzer
First published 2008
Cal Harper faces a shocking reunion in Fort Lauderdale when his long-missing father reappears, only to be shot with a weapon connected to a decades-old mystery. The gun traces back to the 1932 murder of Mitchell Siegel, whose son created Superman after dreaming of a bulletproof man while grieving his father's death. Before Cal can process this revelation, a killer marked with ancient Cain symbols attacks both father and son. Cal finds himself pulled into a deadly hunt for the weapon used in history's first murder, the tool Cain wielded against Abel. His pursuit leads him through an eighty-year-old unsolved case and into conflict with a secretive organization called the Leadership. As Cal digs deeper, he must uncover the connection between the world's first villain and its greatest hero, between two murders separated by millennia, all while racing to stay alive.
Genres: historical-fiction, adventure, mystery, crime, thriller, action
Vibes: fast-paced, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family
Setting: Fort Lauderdale
Period: 1932, 2000s
334 pages · Hardcover · Grand Central Publishing
Content warnings: violence