CAN SHE LEARN TO LIVE AS A KILLER? IT'S THAT OR DIE AS ONE.

A new thriller from the author of You Were Never Really Here

LAPD homicide detective Maria Cole trusts no one. She survives on her own wits. She sleeps with a knife. She tries to forget her past. Then she receives a call.

Her estranged ex-con father has been murdered at his home in coastal Alabama, and everything she's buried comes surging back. When she arrives in the sleepy beach town to set tle his affairs, nothing the local police tell her adds up. Somebody wants to make sure she doesn't get to the truth.

But Maria always gets to the truth.

Even if it is the death of her.

"I'll read anything by Jonathan Ames. I love his offbeat imagination... His latest book is a short, sharp thriller... A cracking read, quality writing" - The Times

"Like a fresh espresso: short but intense, it makes you sit bolt upright and leaves your heart pounding" - The Times

"An elegantly crafted southern noir of corruption, racism, violence and redemption" - Irish Times

"Bleak but intermittently lyrical... [Maria Cole] would be a fascinating protagonist to meet again" - Wall Street Journal

"Very well-written and with a successful surprise resolution" - The Critic Magazine

"An action-packed noir thriller... and a final twist that no one will see coming" - Irish Independent

"A spare but potent novella . . . Ames's disaffected style infuses the proceedings with a deep sadness that elevates it from bog-standard crime fiction to something headier and more emotionally wounding." - Publisher's Weekly (starred review)

"A quicksilver family reckoning whose epiphanies arrive in the form of felonies" - Kirkus

"Hits with the power of shotgun blast... Brilliant, but highly disturbing." - Shots Magazine

"PRAISE FOR JONATHAN AMES" - -

"Fits neatly into the landscape of Chandler, Macdonald, Connelly and Crais" - Los Angeles Daily News

"Thoroughly enjoyable... First-class pulp fiction" - The Times