Wolf's Revenge (Leo Maxwell Mystery, 5) - Hardcover

Smith, Lachlan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 080212707X ISBN 13: 9780802127075

Publisher: Mysterious Press, 2017

Synopsis

Leo Maxwell is no ordinary attorney. He spends as much time tracking corrupt politicians and gangland leaders across the Bay Area to piece together the facts of a crime as he does crafting courtroom rhetoric. But Leo has never quite recovered from discovering his mother’s murdered corpse as a child.

In Wolf’s Revenge, the fifth novel in Lachlan Smith’s critically acclaimed series, attorney-detective Leo Maxwell seeks an exit strategy from his family’s deepening entanglement with a ruthless prison-based gang. Caught between the sadistic criminal Bo Wilder and the FBI, Leo charts his own path in defending a young woman who was manipulated into murdering an Aryan Brotherhood member in broad daylight. When the consequences of the case strike heartbreakingly close to home, long-held secrets are revealed, transforming Leo’s perspective on the aftermath of the tragedy that derailed his childhood and fractured his family over two decades ago. Leo comes to realize that there’s no such thing as fair play in the battle against a prison gang that’s already being punished to the full extent of the law. The question then becomes who will get revenge first―the Maxwells or the gang leader who pursues them?

About this title

About the Author

Lachlan Smith was a Stegner Fellow in Fiction at Stanford and received an MFA from Cornell. He has written four previous books in the Leo Maxwell Mystery series: Bear Is Broken, which won the 2014 Shamus Award for Best First PI Novel, Lion Plays Rough, Fox Is Framed, and Panther's Prey. Smith's fiction has also appeared in the Best New American Voices series. In addition to writing novels, he is an attorney practicing in the area of civil rights and employment law. He lives in Alabama.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

One thought simultaneously heartened and chilled me. If the man I’d noticed earlier had taken my niece, this likely was no random abduction. Far more probable was that Carly had been targeted by a man named Bo Wilder. If Wilder had ordered this, it was to send a message, either to my brother Teddy or to me. Wilder had no reason to hurt Carly.
Not unless one of us had given him one.
Whenever I passed an usher or security guard I shouted my alarm about a lost girl. I’d run a near-complete circle of the stadium before my phone vibrated. It was Teddy. “We found her,” he said. “A guy brought her back.”
I slowed to a walk, but only for a moment. Then I began to jog again. I arrived at our section and slowed, trying to look casual as I came down the stairs, my hard breathing reminding me how long it’d been since I’d ridden my bike. The man with the prison muscles was there. Carly stood looking down at a little green-shirted mascot doll he must have bought for her. I came down the steps behind them and grabbed the guy’s arm.
He turned, his smile betraying no sign of the pressure I was exerting just above his massive triceps, his arm as thick around as the leg of a sedentary man, his head shaved bald. I pulled out my cell phone and suggested that Carly pose for a picture with the man.
His expression didn’t fade as I snapped a series of shots. His hand remained on Carly’s shoulder, but his eyes never left my face.

About this edition

• Publisher: Mysterious Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 080212707X
• ISBN 13: 9780802127075
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256