When One Man Dies
A Jackson Donne Novel
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3.9 • 45 Ratings
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- $1.99
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- $1.99
Publisher Description
Nominated for the Strand Critics Award
Nominated for the Shamus Award
The critically acclaimed and multi award-nominated first book in the Jackson Donne series, a riveting, gritty thriller from one of the brightest new crime writers working today.
A hit and run. Simple as that. And suddenly harmless old Gerry Figuroa is lying dead on the asphalt. New Jersey cop turned private investigator Jackson Donne sure as hell doesn’t want to investigate his drinking buddy’s death, but he’s made a promise that leaves him no choice.
And before long, he’s drawing uncomfortably close to a murderer.
Meanwhile, an apparently routine divorce case takes a dangerous turn, and sinister connections to Gerry’s death start to emerge. Just when it seems things can’t get any worse, Donne learns that a bitter old enemy is mixed up in the whole mess. Bill Martin, his ex–Narcotics Department partner, has secrets to expose that could reopen the still-aching wounds of Donne’s past. Permanently.
Donne would like nothing better than to crawl back into a bottle and forget he ever heard Gerry Figuroa’s name, but it’s too late for that. Now he’s in way too deep, tangled up in a plot whose tendrils reach far into his town’s past—and his own.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Derringer Award winner White's engrossing, evocative debut novel will grab most readers from its opening sentences: "I've killed three men in my life. One the police know about, two that I've kept to myself." New Jersey ex-cop Jackson Donne is about to use profits from his PI business to fund a bachelor's degree when his closest friend, Korean War vet Gerry Figuroa, is killed in a hit-and-run. Reluctantly investigating the accident, Donne finds evidence that Figuroa may have been supplementing his actor's income by manufacturing crystal meth, and soon suspicious ties appear to an apparently unrelated adultery and divorce case. White manages to make improbable plot twists seem plausible, and his choice to alternate Donne's slightly unhinged first-person narration with the third-person perspective of New Brunswick Police Det. Bill Martin, Donne's despicably corrupt former partner and nemesis, works surprisingly well. Fans of hard-hitting, uncompromising private investigators will hope that Donne ditches his college dreams and continues to pound the pavement.
