Abridged Fiction - 2 CASSETTES - 3 hours

Publisher, Harper Audio (October 1992)

Recovering alcoholic and former cop Matthew Scudder is no stranger to the seamier aspects of life in New York City. Now a private investigator, he's also becoming very well acquainted with sudden death in the Big Apple—death at its most violent, gruesome, and inexplicable. When the attractive wife of Kenan Khoury, heroin wholesaler to the five boroughs, never returns from a shopping trip, the kidnappers send her husband a terse message: "One million dollars cash, or we will kill your wife." But Khoury haggles over the price—and his wife comes back in pieces. With the help of two computer geniuses, a streetwise punk, and some of the city's top drug lords, Scudder tracks the killers though the lurid back streets of Brooklyn. Matt quickly closes in on them, but his walk among the tombstones could lead him to one with his own name on it.

About the Author: Lawrence Block has won a mystery writer's highest accolades: the Edgar Award, a Shamus Award, and the Nero Wolfe Award.

About the Performer: Stephen Lang has starred on Broadway in Hamlet, A Few Good Men, and The Speed of Darkness.