Drawing Dead
A Cross Novel
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
Even the deadliest gangs in Chicagoland fear the Cross Crew and carefully avoid their cinderblock bunker headquarters: Red 71 is well known as the last place you'd want to go . . . unless you’re willing to risk it being the last place you'll ever go. The Crew is notorious for its ruthless efficiency and cold-blooded cunning. Why, then, would anyone be foolhardy enough to threaten them–and even more dangerous–their loved ones?
As Cross catches the scent of a far-reaching conspiracy, he realizes that it all connects to an unexplained event in his past: a massacre from which he emerged inexplicably unscathed, save for the blue mark on his face that pulses when danger is near. That scar has been throbbing more frequently of late. . . . If he's reading the signs accurately, Cross might find himself again facing a terrible menace that is not altogether human.
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MEMO
FROM: Captain Nathan Lancaster, Chief, Gang Surveillance Unit
TO: All Precincts, Focus Near-North
ALERT: Incoming Threats to Cross Crew, Situation Highly Unstable
DETAILS: “Cross” and known associates clearly organizing response to perceived pattern of threats. Gang Intelligence indicates high probability of pre-emptive strikes. Report any suspicious and/or unusual activity in Badlands area immediately, gang violence alert level RED.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Vachss's third outing for the urban mercenary known only as Cross (after 2014's Urban Renewal) is an uneasy blend of gritty crime novel and supernatural thriller. Sometime in the past, Cross, as part of an "off-the-books government unit," takes on a mysterious entity that rips the skulls and spines out of its victims. Cross and his team fail to capture the thing, a shape-changing black blob, at a Chicago federal prison, and more than 200 people die. Cross emerges with a permanent blue brand just below his right eye that's somehow capable of communicating warnings. In the present, Cross leads an oddball crew, which includes Princess, "a teenage death-match veteran," and Tiger, a woman with an "outrageous figure" and gold and black striped hair. An attempted assassination leads the partners to suspect that someone is making a move on them and Cross to fear a connection with the enigmatic entity. Some readers will struggle to identify with the cartoonish characters.
