Against Nature
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Perched in an airy penthouse above the corrupt streets of Manhattan, unlicensed P.I. Duck Darley has settled into an unlikely domestic routine with a wealthy divorcée and her precocious eight-year-old son. But old nightmares return when a desperate text from Cass Kimball, the former partner Duck once took a bullet to protect, lures him back into sworn-off vices and the sinister world of professional sports . . .
Cass cries murder after her boyfriend tumbles to his death in the Catskills while researching the tragic doping experiments that changed the lives of East German Olympic athletes during the Cold War. Following the brutal killing of a champion javelin thrower, Cass herself is arrested on charges of double homicide, leaving Duck on an impossible quest for answers while doubting everything he ever believed about his secretive sidekick . . .
Now, caught between the secret horrors of extreme performance enhancement and shadowy criminals who stalk him relentlessly, it’s sink or swim as Duck stumbles through a reckless investigation that endangers both his life and that of anyone he allows himself to hold dear.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Barrett's over-the-top sequel to 2017's Under Water finds Duck Darley, a former competitive swimmer turned off-the-books PI, ostensibly employed as a tutor and swim instructor to the eight-year-old son of the wealthy divorcee with whom he lives in her Manhattan apartment. He gets a call from his one-time business partner, former professional dominatrix Cass Kimball, seeking his help with the death of her lover, journalist Victor Wingate, who was writing about the Olympic doping scandals of the former East Germany. Cass is sure that Victor's fall from the top of a waterfall near her house in the Catskills was no accident. This news sends Darley into a spiral of drinking, self-destructive behavior, and self-loathing, all of which is more than a little overdone. As Darley gets to the heart of the story Victor was pursuing, he must face various intimidating and cartoonish villains en route to the shocking climax. Scenes of peculiar sex and violence obscure a whodunit that would have been more effective with a lighter touch.
