Briarpatch

A car bomb explodes in a white-orange flash, blowing a pretty young homicide detective to bits. A thousand miles away in Washington, Benjamin Dill learns of his sisters murder and returns to their hometown to find out who killed her and why.

Dill, a consultant to an obscure Senate investigating subcommittee, has another task to perform. He must obtain evidence from an old boyhood friend, Jake Spivey, about the illegal arms deals that have made Jake a multimillionaire, evidence that would send Jake's former partner, the sinister Clyde Brattle, to jail for the rest of his life. Are Spivey and Brattle somehow connected to his sister's death? Why was she leading a strange double life with her boss, Gene Colder, the dapper captain of the squad? Searching for answers to these questions, Dill uncovers an unsavory nest of petty thieves, hired guns, crooked cops and corrupt politicians—all with motives to murder his sister, and each other. He meets the smart, beautiful Anna Maude Singe, who falls in love with him. And in one brief, brutally hot weekend, they are swept up in a vortex of intrigue, betrayal and violence, risking their lives as the mystery reaches its surprising and spellbinding climax.

Savage, sexy, sardonic, sophisticated — Briarpatch is all these, and more.

Crackling with swift action and sharp dialogue, stinging in its satirical view of a small Midwestern city and its eccentric inhabitants, the novel is a dazzling display of Ross Thomas's genius as a master storyteller.