Two years after his wife went missing, Detective Maxim Dwyer is still running down leads. The isolated woods of Sycamore are home to many lawless men, and no one's talking, but that hasn't stopped Maxim from gathering suspects. Topping his list is the local motorcycle club, the Seventh Sons. His biggest obstacle? Everyone swears the bikers are werewolves. The small-town residents are wary of provoking the MC, and the marshal's office is no exception.
Everything changes when a routine biker brawl turns fatal. Going against procedure, Maxim presses an enigmatic stranger for answers. But Diego de la Torre is running his own con. The outlaw deals in lies and legends, and no adversary can back him down. Not even the police.
It's too bad nobody's above the law for Maxim. He's willing to risk his badge, and his life, to prove it.
Genre: FICTION / Mystery & Detective / General#1 Werewolf Mystery Bestseller. Accompanied by two sequels. All 3 are whisperwynced to audio.
Some days started better than others. In the present circumstances, Maxim had barely taken his jacket off and already Sergeant Hitchens was lecturing him.
"Let me explain something to you, Dwyer, for your own benefit."
The detective resigned himself to a sigh. He couldn't proceed with his work until he got this over with. He walked over to his desk and sat in his swivel chair.
The Sanctuary Marshal's Office was a small department. The main room was an open space that had desks for all nine officers. The high walls were lined with skylight windows, but the dirty glass and fluorescent lights bequeathed a musty air of the seventies.
It was likely that the other two shift officers were out on patrol because Barney Hitchens was Maxim's sole companion this morning. While it was customary to speak above the irregular humming of the old air conditioner, such an impersonal gesture wasn't the style of the fatherly veteran.
"Hitchens, did I ever tell you that you were like the black uncle I never had?"
"Thank the Lord for that. I try to get Gutierrez to heed my advice but that boy isn’t right in the head. I saw you finally convinced him to shave his face!"
The officer grabbed the padded chair on the side of Maxim's desk and pulled it away to account for his large girth. "Hell," the old man started as he plopped down in the chair facing the detective, "if I was really your uncle I would've whooped your ass a long time ago."
Besides the sergeant's longtime friends, most officers working for Barney Hitchens found him to be unnecessarily abrasive. For Maxim, it was the opposite. The fact that the detective's Criminal Investigation Unit didn't answer to the patrol sergeant certainly helped avoid friction, but there was more to it than that. Enemies cajoled; friends complained.
