Fiction/General

Hardcover
ISBN: 0316036234
$27.99/U.S.
384 pages
Little, Brown and Company

Paperback
ISBN: 0446568848
$14.99/U.S.
416 pages
Grand Central Publishing

The good

New York's Lombardo's Steak House is famous for three reasons—the menu, the clientele, and now, the gruesome murder of an infamous mob lawyer. Effortlessly, the assassin slips through the police's fingers, and his absence sparks a blaze of accusations about who ordered the hit.

The bad

Seated at a nearby table, reporter Nick Daniels is conducting a once-in-a-lifetime interview with a legendary baseball bad boy. In the chaos, he accidentally captures a key piece of evidence that lands him in the middle of an all-out war between Italian and Russian mafia forces. NYPD captains, district attorneys, mayoral candidates, media kingpins, and one shockingly beautiful magazine editor are all pushing their own agendas—on both sides of the law.

And the dead

Back off—or die—is the clear message Nick receives as he investigates for a story of his own. Heedless, and perhaps in love with his beautiful editor, Nick endures humiliation, threats, violence, and worse in a thriller that overturns every expectation and finishes with the kind of flourish only James Patterson knows.

Fiction/General

Hardcover
ISBN: 0316036234
$27.99/U.S.
384 pages
Little, Brown and Company

Paperback
ISBN: 0446568848
$14.99/U.S.
416 pages
Grand Central Publishing

Prologue | IN THE WINK OF A BLINK OF AN EYE

Two

VINCENT MARCOZZA—WEIGHING in at three hundred pounds plus—glanced up from what remained of his blood-rare porterhouse steak, stuffed baked potato, and gaudy portion of onion strings. Even sitting still the guy looked woefully out of breath and very close to a coronary.

“Can I help you?” asked Marcozza, seemingly polite. His raised-on-the-streets-of-Brooklyn tone, however, suggested otherwise. It was more like, Hey, pal, what the hell are you staring at? I’m eating here.

Torenzi stood motionless, measuring the important man. He took his sweet time answering. Finally, in a thick Italian accent he announced, “I have a message from Eddie.”

This amused Marcozza for some reason. His pasty complexion spiked red as he laughed, his neck fat jiggling like a Jell-O mold. “A message from Eddie, huh? Hell, I should’ve known. You look like one of Eddie’s guys.”

He lifted the napkin from his lap, wiping the oily cow juice from the corners of his mouth. “So what is it, boy? Spit it out.”

Torenzi glanced to his left and right as if to point out how close the nearby tables were. They were too close. Capisce?

Marcozza nodded. Then he motioned his uninvited lunch visitor forward. “For my ears only, huh?” he said before breaking into another neck-jiggling laugh. “This oughta be good. It’s a joke, right? Let’s hear it.”

Over by the far wall a waiter stood on tiptoe on a chair, erasing the Chilean sea bass special from a large chalkboard. Hustling by him, a busboy and his gray bucket carried the remains of a table for four. And at the bar, a waitress loaded up her tray with a glass of pinot noir, a vodka tonic, and two dry martinis with almond-stuffed olives.

Torenzi stepped slowly to Marcozza’s side. Placing his left hand firmly on the table, he unclenched his right fist, which was tucked neatly behind his back. The cold steel handle of a scalpel fell promptly and rather gracefully from his sleeve.

Then, leaning in, Torenzi whispered three words, and only three. “Justice is blind.”

Marcozza squinted. Then he frowned. He was about to ask what the hell that was supposed to mean.

But he never got the chance.

Copyright © 2010 by James Patterson

Fiction/General
Audiobook (unabridged CD)
ISBN: 1607882345
$34.98/U.S.
Hachette Audio

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Audio Excerpts (MP3)

Prologue

Chapter 1 to 5

Chapter 6 to 10

Chapter 11 to 15

Chapter 16 to 20

Chapter 21 to 25

Chapter 24 to 27