A Gus Murphy Novel Series

Former Suffolk County cop Gus Murphy returns to prowl the meaner streets of Long Island’s darkest precincts, with a Russian mercenary at his back, in the stunning second installment of Reed Farrel Coleman’s critically acclaimed series, now in paperback.

Gus Murphy and his girlfriend Magdalena are put in harm’s way when Gus is caught up in the distant aftershocks of heinous crimes committed decades ago in Vietnam and Russia. Gus’s ex-priest pal, Bill Kilkenny, introduces him to a wealthy businessman anxious to have someone look more deeply into the brutal murder of his granddaughter. Though the police already have the girl’s murderer in custody, they have been unable to provide a reason for the killing. The businessman, Spears, offers big incentives if Gus can supply him with what the cops cannot—a motive.

Later that same day, Gus witnesses the execution of a man who has just met with his friend Slava. As Gus looks into the girl’s murder and tries to protect Slava from the executioner’s bullet, he must navigate a mine field populated by hostile cops, street gangs, and a Russian mercenary who will stop at nothing to do his master’s bidding. But in trying to solve the girl’s murder and save his friend, Gus may be opening a door into a past that was best left forgotten. Can he fix the damage done, or is it true that what you break you own…forever?

Nominated for the 2017 Edgar Award for Best Novel

From the critically acclaimed and award-winning author comes a gritty, atmospheric new series about the other side of Long Island, far from the wealth of the Hamptons, where real people live—and die.
 
Gus Murphy thought he had the world all figured out. A retired Suffolk County cop, Gus had everything a man could want: a great marriage, two kids, a nice house, and the rest of his life ahead of him. But in the course of a single deadly moment, his family is blown apart, and he is transformed from a man who believes he understands everything into a man who understands nothing.
            Now divorced and working as a courtesy van driver for a run-down hotel, Gus has settled into a mindless, soulless routine. But his comfortable waking trance comes to an end when ex-con Tommy Delcamino asks him for help. Four months earlier, the battered body of Tommy’s son TJ was discovered in a wooded lot, yet the Suffolk County PD doesn’t seem interested in pursuing the killers. In desperation, Tommy seeks out the only cop he ever trusted—Gus Murphy.
            Gus reluctantly agrees to see what he can uncover, and as he begins to investigate, he finds that Tommy was telling the truth. Everyone involved with the late TJ Delcamino—from his best friend, to a gang enforcer, to a Mafia capo, and even the police—has something to hide, and all are willing to go to extreme lengths to keep it hidden. It’s a dangerous favor Gus has taken on as he claws his way back to take a place among the living, while searching through the sewers for a killer.