Product Description
Winner of the 2015 Dashiell Hammett Prize and 2016 Shamus Award
1959. Delpha Wade killed a man who was raping her. Wanted to kill the other one too, but he got away. Now, after fourteen years in prison, she's out. It's 1973, and nobody's rushing to hire a parolee. Persistence and smarts land her a secretarial job with Tom Phelan, an ex-roughneck turned neophyte private eye. Together these two pry into the dark corners of Beaumont, a blue-collar, Cajun-influenced town dominated by Big Oil. A mysterious client plots mayhem against a small petrochemical company—why? Searching for a teenage boy, Phelan uncovers the weird lair of a serial killer. And Delpha—on a weekend outing—looks into the eyes of her rapist, the one who got away. The novel's conclusion is classic noir, full of surprise, excitement, and karmic justice. Sandlin's elegant prose, twisting through the dark thickets of human passion, allows Delpha to open her heart again to friendship, compassion, and sexuality.
1959. Delpha Wade killed a man who was raping her. Wanted to kill the other one too, but he got away. Now, after fourteen years in prison, she's out. It's 1973, and nobody's rushing to hire a parolee. Persistence and smarts land her a secretarial job with Tom Phelan, an ex-roughneck turned neophyte private eye. Together these two pry into the dark corners of Beaumont, a blue-collar, Cajun-influenced town dominated by Big Oil. A mysterious client plots mayhem against a small petrochemical company—why? Searching for a teenage boy, Phelan uncovers the weird lair of a serial killer. And Delpha—on a weekend outing—looks into the eyes of her rapist, the one who got away. The novel's conclusion is classic noir, full of surprise, excitement, and karmic justice. Sandlin's elegant prose, twisting through the dark thickets of human passion, allows Delpha to open her heart again to friendship, compassion, and sexuality.
Reviews/Praise
"Sandlin's clipped prose style is pleasingly eccentric, and can become downright Chandleresque." —Publishers Weekly Starred Review
"I'm especially excited about this one ... rather than starring the dude who runs the detective agency, it's actually more about his secretary, a woman who just got out of prison after serving fourteen years for killing one of the men who raped her." —BookRiot