The Third Rail
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A woman is shot as she waits for her train to work. An hour later, a second woman is killed as she rides an elevated train through the Loop. Then, a church becomes the target of a chemical weapons attack. The city of Chicago is under siege, and Michael Kelly, former cop turned private investigator, happens to be on the scene when all hell breaks loose. Kelly’s brassy investigating and razor-sharp instincts lead him into an intricate plot involving a retired cop, a shady train company, and a quietly ticking weapon nestled deep in the city’s underbelly. But when his girlfriend—the gorgeous judge Rachel Swenson—is abducted, Kelly realizes that the only way he’s going to find the killer is to excavate his own stormy past.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A series of terrifying crimes threatens to paralyze Chicago in Harvey's stellar third novel featuring Chicago PI Michael Kelly (after The Chicago Way and The Fifth Floor). First, a gunman executes two people, apparently at random at different locations, while they ride the T, the city's elevated railway. Next, the sniper shoots at commuters on Lake Shore Drive, killing three people while missing Kelly's girlfriend, Judge Rachel Swenson. Kelly suspects the shooter has an accomplice, a theory dismissed by official law enforcement. The hard-boiled investigator, who at age nine survived a horrific subway accident at the site of one of the T murders 30 years earlier, wonders if there could be a link between that past tragedy and the current spree. The author deftly alternates between his hero's first-person perspective and third-person accounts of the mindsets of the men Kelly seeks. Harvey stakes a persuasive claim as the pre-eminent contemporary voice of Chicago noir. 100,000 first printing; 8-city author tour.
