A collection of three interconnected novellas that follow each generation of the iconic Swagger family—grandfather Charles, father Earl, and fan favorite hero Bob Lee—from New York Times bestselling author, Pulitzer Prize winner, and “true master at the pinnacle of his craft” (Jack Carr, #1 New York Times bestselling author) Stephen Hunter.
In City of Meat, Charles Swagger is on the hunt for notorious bank robber Baby Face Nelson when he traces a tip to the Chicago stock yards. While there, he’s brutally assaulted by a madman involved in a nearby narcotics ring. The ring plans to spread its new drug to the residents of the disenfranchised 7th District of Chicago and to make matters worse, this is no ordinary drug—it makes some users happy, drives others insane, and kills many of the rest. Will Charles be able to stop the ring before it’s too late? Or is he in over his head among the dark streets of Chicago?
Earl Swagger investigates a violent bank robbery that left two dead and a fortune missing in small-town Maryland in Johnny Tuesday. At every turn, however, he’s met with silence and hostility from the townsfolk, which makes sense when he uncovers municipal corruption, gang politics, jaded aristocrats, scheming gamblers, a hitman, a femme fatale, and a whole bunch of men with guns. Luckily, Earl has brought his own guns in this unputdownable noir mystery.
Finally, in Five Dolls for the Gut Hook, a thirty-two-year-old Bob Lee Swagger is back from Vietnam nearly broken over good men lost for nothing. He’s turned down that whiskey road to hell. But one afternoon he’s awakened from his nightmares by two men with a problem. As nearby Hot Springs tries to retool its image from gambling paradise to family resort, a butcher has begun to prey on the city’s young women, a figure straight out of a horror movie. Hot Springs Homicide is baffled and recruit Bob’s help. “I’m a sniper,” says Bob, “not a detective.”
“But,” comes the reply, “you are the son and grandson of two of the greatest detectives this state has ever produced.” On that premise alone, Bob takes up the hunt for a killer who not only kills but desecrates. At the same time, we understand that Bob Lee Swagger is also hunting for his own salvation.