A newspaperman investigates a war correspondent’s hotel room murderAs snow falls on Manhattan, three old colleagues warm themselves in the wood-paneled confines of the Midtown Press Club. Two are editors at highbrow New York publications; the other is Timothy Colt, a daring war correspondent whose face is not famous but whose byline is known the world over. New York Star crime reporter John Wells listens as they rehash old times, then follows Colt back to his room to drink some more. He wakes hung over, just in time to see Colt murdered. After a struggle with Wells draws the attention of hotel security, the assassin flings himself out the window. To unmask Colt’s killer, Wells will have to reach deep into his fellow reporter’s past—for the root of this murder lies in a long-forgotten love, and an atrocious war too terrible to be remembered.
Andrew Klavan (b. 1954) is a highly successful author of thrillers and hard-boiled mysteries. Born in New York City, Klavan was raised on Long Island and attended college at the University of California at Berkeley. He published his first novel, Face of the Earth, in 1977, and continued writing mysteries throughout the eighties, finding critical recognition when The Rain (1988) won an Edgar Award for best new paperback.
Besides his crime fiction, Klavan has distinguished himself as an author of supernatural thrillers, most notably Don’t Say a Word (1991), which was made into a film starring Michael Douglas. He has two ongoing series: Weiss and Bishop, a private-eye duo who made their debut in Dynamite Road (2003), and The Homelanders, a young-adult series about teenagers who fight radical Islam. Besides his fiction, Klavan writes regular opinion pieces for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and other national publications. He lives in Southern California.