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Zusatztext “The action...is intense and the body count in high.”— Los Angeles Times “[An] expertly tuned plot.”— Entertainment Weekly “A wild ride...fast-paced! engaging.”— Houston Press “Jaw-dropping plot twists...page-turning suspense.”—Associated Press “A testosterone-fueled caper.”— Booklist “Impressive...Heartbreaking ironies! frustrated desires! and violent nonstop action make this a standout. Crais just keeps getting better.”— Publishers Weekly Informationen zum Autor Robert Crais Klappentext Private investigators Joe Pike and Elvis Cole get double-crossed in this twisty, gripping New York Times bestseller that will have readers on the edge of their seats. When gangbangers shake down the modest owner of a Los Angeles eatery, Joe Pike intervenes. For all intents and purposes, Pike saved Wilson Smith's life. But for reasons of their own, Smith and his lovely niece, Dru, are curiously resentful. It's only when Pike's feelings for the woman deepen that he and his partner, Elvis Cole, discover that Dru and her uncle are not at all who they seem, and everything Pike has learned about them is a lie. But it's much more than a deception. It's a trap. And with every new twist it's proving to be a killer. New Orleans 2005 Monday, 4:28 a.m., the narrow French Quarter room was smoky with cheap candles that smelled of honey. Daniel stared through broken shutters and shivering glass up the length of the alley, catching a thin slice of Jackson Square through curtains of gale-force rain that swirled through New Orleans like mad bats riding the storm. Daniel had never seen rain fall up before. Daniel loved these damned hurricanes. He folded back the shutters, then opened the window. Rain hit him good. It tasted of salt and smelled of dead fish and weeds. The cat-five wind clawed through New Orleans at better than a hundred miles an hour, but back here in the alley—in a cheap one-room apartment over a po'boy shop—the wind was no stronger than an arrogant breeze. The power in this part of the Quarter had gone out almost an hour ago; hence, the candles Daniel found in the manager's office. Emergency lighting fed by battery packs lit a few nearby buildings, giving a creepy blue glow to the shimmering walls. Most everyone in the surrounding buildings had gone. Not everyone, but most. The stubborn, the helpless, and the stupid had stayed. Like Daniel's friend, Tolley. Tolley had stayed. Stupid. And now here they were in an empty building surrounded by empty buildings in an outrageous storm that had forced more than a million people out of the city, but Daniel kinda dug it. All this noise and all this emptiness, no one to hear Tolley scream. Daniel turned from the window, arching his eyebrows. "You smell that? That's what zombies smell like, brought up from the death with an unnatural life. You get to see a zombie?" Tolley was between answers right now, being tied to the bed with thirty feet of nylon cord. His head just kinda hung there, all swollen and broken, though he was still breathing. Every once in a while he would lurch and shiver. Daniel didn't let Tolley's lack of responsiveness stop him. Daniel sauntered over to the bed. Cleo and Tobey shuffled out of the way, letting him pass. Daniel had a syringe pack in his bag, along with some poppers, meth, and other choice pharmaceuticals. He took out the kit, shot up Tolley with some crystal, then waited for it to take effect. Outside, something exploded with a muffled whump that wasn't quite lost in the wind. Power transformer, probably, giving up the ghost, or maybe a wall falling over. Tolley's eyes flickered amid a sudden fury of blinks, then dialed into focus. He tried to pull away when he saw Daniel, but, really, where could he go? Daniel said, all serious, "I asked you, you ...
