by Archer Mayor
Part of Joe Gunther, book 13
First published 2003
The call from the NYPD shatters Willy's quiet Vermont life. His ex-wife Mary lies dead in her Lower East Side apartment, and the police need him to identify the body. Willy reluctantly travels back to New York, the city where he once battled his demons with alcohol. When he sees Mary's body, something feels wrong. The police point to a needle mark on her arm and call it an overdose, but Willy suspects more. His grief mingles with guilt as he digs into the circumstances of her death. The investigation forces him to confront memories he has buried since Vietnam, where he earned his reputation as a deadly marksman known simply as the Sniper. The deeper Willy searches, the more his past threatens to consume his present. His quest for truth becomes a reckoning with the violence that once defined him. In the streets of New York, Willy must face both his former sins and the dangerous skills that made him legendary.
Genres: mystery, crime, thriller, action
Vibes: dark, emotional, fast-paced, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Vermont, New York, Lower East Side
Period: Vietnam War
478 pages · Hardcover · Wheeler Publishing
Content warnings: violence