Gibby’s older brothers have already been to war. Robert died in the jungles of Vietnam, while Jason came back misunderstood and hard, a decorated killer and drug addict now freshly released from a three-year stint in prison. Jason won’t speak of the war or of his time behind bars, and he’s estranged from his father, a detective, as well as his mother. But Jason does want a relationship with the younger brother he hasn’t known for years. Determined to make that connection, he coaxes Gibby into a day at the lake: long hours of sunshine and whiskey and older women. But the day turns ugly when the four encounter a prison transfer bus on a stretch of empty road. Beautiful but drunk, Jason’s girlfriend Tyra taunts the prisoners, leading to a riot on the bus. She finds it funny in the moment, but is savagely murdered soon after. The man behind this violence is a deranged, wealthy serial killer, incarcerated yet running the prison through money and intimidation. Given Jason’s violent history, suspicion turns first to him; but when Tyra’s friend, Sara, is kidnapped days later, the police suspect Gibby, too. Determined to prove Jason innocent, Gibby must avoid the cops and dive deep into his brother’s hidden life, a dark world of heroin, guns, and outlaw motorcycle gangs. What he discovers there is a truth bleaker than he could have imagined: not just the identity of the killer and the reasons for Tyra’s murder, but also the forces that shaped his brother in Vietnam, the reason he was framed, and why the most dangerous man alive wants him back in prison.



John Hart is the author of six New York Times bestsellers, most recently The Hush. The only author in history to win the Edgar Award for Best Novel consecutively, John has also won the Barry Award, the SIBA Award for Fiction, the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award, and the North Carolina Award for Literature. His novels have been translated into thirty languages and can be found in more than seventy countries.