Vaults, The City

“Fans of writers like Caleb Carr, James Ellroy, and E. L. Doctorow need to give Ball a try” (Library Journal).

At the height of the most corrupt administration in the City’s history, a mysterious duplicate file is discovered deep within the Vaults—a cavernous hall containing all of the municipal criminal justice records of the last seventy years.

From here, we follow Arthur Puskis, the Vaults’ hermit-like archivist; Frank Frings, a high-profile investigative journalist; and Ethan Poole, a socialist private eye with a penchant for blackmail. All three men will undertake their own investigations into the dark past and uncertain future of their surroundings, and what they find will call everything they thought they knew about the City into question.

This work of literary noir mystery with a dystopian edge, set in an unnamed American city in the mid-1930s, is “[an] impressive thriller debut. . . . The plot steamrolls to a dramatic conclusion. . . . An imaginative achievement on par with Loren Estleman’s Gas City” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

“Though clad in convincing period detail, Ball’s atmospheric debut thriller is a story for the ages.” —Library Journal (starred review)