For his next hardboiled outing, P.I. Frank Johnson takes up investigating the violent death of Lark Turnbull. A local prostitute, she has drowned in her motel room bathtub while inebriated. Her twin sister, Nola, has other ideas and suspects foul play is involved. She hires Frank to look into the matter and understand what actually happened to Lark. During August's hot and dry weather, Frank's investigation leads him to confront the seedy underbelly of his native small town of Pelham, Virginia. As Frank probes deeper into Lark Turnbull's death, he leans on his long-time friend and business partner, Gerald Peyton; his medical examiner wife, Dreema; and his brilliant but outspoken attorney, Robert Gatlin. Frank and Gerald soon battle the evil forces holed up inside of a dilapidated and remote farmhouse. Outnumbered and outgunned, they depend on their quick thinking, resourceful imagination, and steely nerves to even up the odds stacked against them. Critically acclaimed crime novelist James Crumley endorsed the P.I. Frank Johnson Mystery Series. "With a plot as complex as your grandmother's crocheted doilies, Mr. Lynskey creates a portrait of the rural hill country that rings as true as the clank of a Copenhagen can on a PBR can, as does his handle on guns, love, and betrayal. This novel is well worth the read and makes me want more."#1 New York Times bestselling author James Rollins states, "Ed Lynskey's P.I. Frank Johnson's books are as hard-bitten and hard-boiled as they come. The dialogue crackles with such sharpness that you'd swear sparks were jumping off the pages. And P.I. Frank Johnson is a character cut from the Tarantino mold: tough, wounded, conflicted, and badass."New York Times bestselling author and Edgar Award-winning author Megan Abbott writes the P.I. Frank Johnson mystery series, which "bears the richest nicotine and bourbon stains of the hardboiled genre, yet also bristles with vitality. The plot sings, the characters are twisty and textured, and the violence is brutal but inevitable. These elements would be more than enough, yet Ed Lynskey offers so much more in the form of a perfectly pitched prose style that swings effortlessly from back-country grit to Appalachian poetry and back again."
