Publisher, Hachette Audio (September 2010)

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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.

About the Authors: The subject of a recent Time magazine feature called, "The Man Who Can't Miss," James Patterson is the bestselling author of the past year, bar none, with more than 12 million books sold in North America alone. In total, James's books have sold an estimated 130 million copies worldwide. He is the first author to have #1 new titles simultaneously on The New York Times adult and children's lists and is the only author to have five new hardcover novels debut at #1 on the list in one year — a record-breaking feat he accomplished twice — in 2005 and 2006.

Patterson is a champion of reading and the founder of the $250,000 PageTurner awards that seek to spread the excitement and joy of books and reading in the United States. James's first foray into kid-accessible fiction, the critically acclaimed Maximum Ride series, debuted on the list at #1 and remained there for 12 straight weeks. The series has so far been on The New York Times bestsellers lists for more than 56 weeks, proving that kids love page turners, too.

Patterson is the creator of the #1 new detective series of the past dozen years, featuring "Alex Cross" and including the Hollywood-adapted "Along Came a Spider" and "Kiss the Girls," starring Academy Award-winning actor Morgan Freeman. He is also the creator of the #1 new detective series of the past five years, featuring Lindsay Boxer and the other members of the Women's Murder Club, for which the ABC drama series is named. He has authored books behind six films on the Hollywood fast-track, including the young adult series Maximum Ride, an adaptation of the celebrated illustrated children's book, santaKid, the thrillers Honeymoon and Lifeguard, the Alex Cross series, and a stunning horror novel to be published in '07, You've Been Warned.

He is the author of novels — from The Thomas Berryman Number (1976) to Honeymoon (2005) — that have won awards including the Edgar, the BCA Mystery Guild's Thriller of the Year and the International Thriller of the Year award.

One of Forbes magazine's Celebrity 100, James appeared as a guest star on the popular FOX TV show "The Simpsons" in March, 2007.

Howard Roughan is a former Manhattan-based advertising creative director who swears his main character is nothing like him.