Ghostman (Jack White Novels)

Ghostman (Jack White Novels)

FINALIST FOR THE EDGAR AWARD—BEST FIRST NOVEL In a daring operation, two crooks-for-hire rob an Atlantic City casino. But their heist goes horribly wrong, and only one of them makes it out alive. Now he's on the run with half a million dollars vacuum-packed into a bundle the size of a briefcase. Little does he know it's rigged with explosives. Almost immediately, an expert fixer named Jack is in cross-country pursuit. With less than foty-eight hours to recover the money, clean up the mess, and—for god's sake—try not to botch the job like he did last time.... NATIONAL BESTSELLER    A  Booklist  Best Mystery of the Year    Winner of The Strand Critics' Award   Winner of the Crime Writers' Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award   “A pulse-pumping heist thriller.” — Rolling Stone “Smoking-fast. . . . The debut of a gifted crime writer.” — The New York Times “Fast, hard and knowing: this is an amazing debut full of intrigue, tradecraft and suspense.  Read it immediately!” —Lee Child   “A tense and tightly coiled debut thriller.” — Entertainment Weekly   “A stunningly accomplished debut. . . . [Hobbs] has the talent to fuel bestsellers and summer blockbusters for years to come.” — The Richmond Times-Dispatch “Richly imagined and darkly fascinating.” — San Francisco Chronicle   “A super-slick thriller.”— New York Daily News   “Stylishly gritty and fast-paced.” — O, The Oprah Magazine   “A first-time novelist who’s . . . already writing with the poise of an old pro. . . . Hobbs is an assured stylist who favors clean, precise prose, [and] handles violence with a lyric touch.” — The New York Times Book Review   “ Ghostman is terrific: lightning-quick, absolutely compelling, and smart as all get-out.”— The Seattle Times   “Crackling with action.” — Bloomberg News   “Wonderfully hard-boiled.” — Parade   “A gripping adrenaline rush, a dirty bomb of a crime thriller with a deceptive plot that confounds and stimulates characters and readers alike.” — Portland Monthly   “What [Lee] Child’s debut novel, Killing Floor , did for thrillers, Hobbs does for crime novels.” — Arizona Republic   “Hobbs is up there with the best. I don't think I've read a better botched heist than the one that begins Ghostman . It's a masterpiece of hyper-kinetic blocking and deep, vivid detail.”—John O’Connell, The Guardian (London)   “A propulsive thriller that combines incredible detail and unstoppable narrative drive. . . . Hobbs possesses a [Lee] Child-like ability for first unleashing and then shrewdly directing a tornado of a plot, but he also evokes Elmore Leonard in the subtle interplay of his characters. A triumph on every level.” — Booklist (starred review)   “This watertight debut [is] at once slick and gritty. . .  Straight out of the gate, Hobbs has mastered the essentials of a contemporary thriller: a noir-like tone, no-nonsense prose and a hero with just enough personality to ensure he doesn’t come off as an amoral death machine [as well as] heart-stopping scenes that illustrate how small mistakes can turn catastrophic.”  — Kirkus Reviews  (starred review) Roger Hobbs was the youngest-ever winner of the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award and is a recipient of the Strand Critics Award for Best First Novel and the Maltese Falcon Prize. Born in 1988, Hobbs graduated from Reed College in Portland. Mr. Hobbs died in 2016. www.rogerhobbs.com 1 Seattle, Washington The shrill, high-­pitched chirp of an incoming e-­mail was like a bell ringing in my head. I woke with a start and immediately put a hand on my gun. I took gasping breaths as my eyes adjusted to the light coming off my security screens. I looked over to the windowsill where I’d set my watch. The sky was still as black as ink. I took the gun out from under my pillow and put it on my nightstand. Breathe. When I regained my composure I scanned the monitors. There was no one in the hallway or the elevator. Nobody in the stairs or the lobby. The only person awake was the night watchman, who looked too engrossed in a book to notice anything. My building was an old ten-­story, and I was on the eighth floor. It was a seasonal sort of place, so there were year-­round occupants in only about half the rooms and none of them ever got up early. Everyone was still asleep, or away for the summer. My computer chirped again. I’ve been an armed robber for close to twenty years. Paranoia comes with the territory, as well as the stack of fake passports and hundred-­dollar bills under the bottom drawer of my dresser. I started in this business in my teens. I did a few banks because I thought I’d like the thrill of it. I wasn’t the luckiest and I’m probably not the smartest, but I’ve never been caught, questioned or fingerprinted. I’m very good at what I do. I’ve survived because I’m extremely careful. I live alone, I sleep alone, I eat alone. I trust no one. There are maybe thirty people on earth who know I exist, and I am not sure if all of them