An electrifying, multi-voiced thriller tackling our criminal justice system, from the writer Michael Connelly has called 'one of our most gifted novelists.'

Longlisted for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger 2021
‘Excellent, lucid, intelligent and gripping’ – Scotsman
‘An utterly riveting read’ – Guardian, Thriller of the Month

6 December 1993. A drug dealer called Scrappy is shot and left for dead on her mother’s lawn in South Central Los Angeles. Two local gang members, Wizard and Dreamer, are arrested. The problem is: one is guilty, the other wasn’t even there. It had to be a frame-up. And the cops had to be responsible, didn’t they?

Narrated by the characters involved – the suspects, the victim, the families who love them, and those simply doing their jobs – The System tells the story of one crime, from the moments before shots are fired to the verdict and its violent aftershocks. It’s a breakneck journey through the American criminal justice system. A system that can save you, or break you.

"Pacy, immersive and vivid, with strong characterisation and no punches pulled, this is an utterly riveting read" - Guardian, Thrillers of the Month

"The most compelling courtroom drama I have read this year" - Sunday Telegraph, Novel of the Week

"A portrait of Nineties LA to sit alongside that of James Ellroy’s depiction of it in the Forties" - The Times, Thriller of the Month

"A crime novel and a thriller, but, like the best in the genre, it invites you to think as well as feel" - Scotsman

"Gattis tells a muscular tale about injustice, systemic racism and a US city abandoned by Californian and national government, and infuses it with humanity and supersonic excitement" - Metro, Best Crime Novels of the Year

"Powerfully illuminates every corner of the law-and-order universe . . . accessible and irresistible" - Los Angeles Times

"Through multiple narrators, [Ryan Gattis] tells a muscular, rousing tale of injustice, systemic racism and the desperation of those chunks of urban America abandoned by local and national government." - Metro