First published 2010
Mike Wingate built everything from nothing. Abandoned by his father at age four, cycled through foster care, he scraped together a life worth having: a wife named Annabel, an eight-year-old daughter named Kat, and a construction company on the verge of completing a green housing development that will set his family up for good. Then men he doesn't recognize start showing up. Threatening him. Warning him. The police run his name and suddenly seem more curious about Mike's past than about the people stalking him. Mike doesn't know what he did or what someone thinks he knows, because the past driving all of this happened before he was old enough to remember it. With Annabel and Kat in danger and nowhere safe to turn, Mike calls on Shep, his closest friend from their foster care days, a man who operates well outside the law. The two of them go on the offensive. At the center of everything is a question Mike has to answer before the people hunting him finish the job: what did his father leave behind?
Genres: suspense, mystery, crime, adult, adult-fiction, thriller
Vibes: dark, fast-paced, gritty, intense, suspenseful
Tropes: found-family, man-on-the-run, mystery-of-the-past, protective-father
Period: 21st-century
437 pages · Paperback · Sphere
Content warnings: child-abuse, death, violence