For fans of Harlan Coben, Robert Crais and Lee Child.
When college basketball coach Malik Shaw goes missing after a family tragedy, it looks like just another retired athlete gone off the rails. But Malik's childhood friend, private security specialist Ty Johnson, quickly begins to suspect that there is more to it.
Chasing the truth, Ty, along with his business partner, Ryan Lock, begin to uncover a sinister conspiracy of silence in a sleepy Minnesota college town.
"Sean Black writes like a punch to the gut." – Jesse Kellerman
"The heir apparent to Lee Child." – Ken Bruen
Genre: FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Hard-Boiled
One of the strongest selling books in the Ryan Lock series, which have sold hundreds of thousands of books worldwide. The first book in the series, Lockdown, sold at auction for over half a million dollars to Transworld, the British publisher of Lee Child and Dan Brown,
Long Beach, California
July 1999
As a United States Marine, Ty Johnson had one advantage. He already knew what it was like to face down someone who wanted to kill you. Growing up in Long Beach in the nineties had taken care of that.
To Ty as a child, and then a teenager, violence had been commonplace. He’d seen people shot, stabbed and beaten to death. Sometimes they just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Others, someone had come looking for them. Not that it mattered much to the family gathered around the casket.
This time had been one of those wrong-time-wrong-place deals – a basketball court in early summer, playing a little one-on-one with his friend Malik Shaw. Ty had been standing with his back to the hoop: ‘Let me see what you got, Mr All Star.’
In front of him, Malik gave that easy smile of his. Ty spread his arms wide and bounced on the heels of box-fresh white sneakers that were already acquiring a dirty tideline from the hot asphalt of the playground.
‘What I got? Got you in my pocket for a start,’ said Malik.
‘That so?’ said Ty, flipping his left hand out to try to steal the ball.
With a flick of his right wrist, Malik spun it away from him. He took a step back. He feinted hard left, and then he was on the move, zipping past Ty, like he was a mirage, and moving toward the basket. Caught off balance by the feint, Ty tried to sort out his feet, almost falling over.
