Lesser Evils
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
"Transposes the corrupt world of James Ellroy's L.A. Confidential to the Cape Cod of 1957 . . . Ratchets up the suspense to an almost unbearable level" (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
When the first young boy goes missing in a quiet Cape Cod town, Bill Warren, who took the job of police chief after returning from World War II, is pulled into a morass that promises no happy ending. As his pursuit uncovers the unimaginable, he is led into a world of criminal conspiracy, a secretive pharmaceutical firm, and an odd local clergyman who may be either a miracle worker or a madman. And while caring for his disabled son, he must fight to maintain control of an investigation in which more and more people—from the state police to the district attorney to a tenacious Boston reporter—are taking a serious interest.
As facts become murkier and the threat rises, Warren struggles to survive in a world where the police can be just as corrupt as the criminals they chase, and where a murder inquiry will ultimately lead to his front door.
"A deftly plotted and perfectly realized crime novel that features one of the most interesting, complex and likable protagonists of recent times." —Stav Sherez, author of Eleven Days
"[A] highly impressive debut." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Flanagan's highly impressive debut transposes the corrupt world of James Ellroy's L.A. Confidential to the Cape Cod of 1957. Trouble appears for Lt. Bill Warren, a single father who oversees the police force in Barnstable, in the form of Capt. Dale Stasiak of the Massachusetts State Police, a crew-cut giant of a man who has been assigned to look into the disappearance of a young boy in Truro. Stasiak makes no bones about annexing the case from the local police, with the grudging support of district attorney Elliott Yost. When Warren learns of Stasiak's bigfooting, he takes it as a personal insult. Why is Stasiak resisting Warren's efforts to investigate a gambling and loan-shark ring that seems to have spread its tentacles Cape-wide? Why, when the corpses of other young boys are discovered near surrounding towns, isn't Stasiak alarmed that a serial killer may be running loose? And how does disgraced Father Boyle fit into the picture? Flanagan ratchets up the suspense to an almost unbearable level, and the climactic face-off between Warren and the monstrous Stasiak is an instant classic.
