THE END OF THE ROAD
A bank robber tries to leave behind his life of crime after serving his time. But getting out isn’t so easy.
Myles’s courtroom testimony should have put Pryor, their one-eyed ringleader, behind bars after the bank robbery gone wrong, yet somehow Pryor got off scot-free while Myles served time. Now, upon his release, Myles decides he is done with his life of wrongdoing―a change that will only be possible if he can kill Pryor and turn over a new leaf. Pryor has other ideas, and the collision between these two deadly forces soon leaves the ex-con in critical condition, clinging to life in a hospital bed.
With Myles in recovery, it’s up to his girlfriend Penny to avenge her lover and salvage their chance at normalcy. As Pryor and his cronies prepare for their biggest score yet–targeting a vulnerable small-town Ohio bank on a day when Amish farmers arrive with hefty cash deposits–Penny is hot on their heels. But is she prepared for the carnage Pryor will gleefully wreak on the path to his prize?
With characters as sharply drawn as those in a Dennis Lehane novel and a rich Midwestern setting, The End of the Road is a fast-paced rural noir that announces Andrew Welsh-Huggins as one of the most powerful voices in the mystery world.
SICK TO DEATH
After years of personal and professional turmoil, things are finally looking up for Columbus, Ohio, private eye Andy Hayes
As Sick to Death opens, Andy is relishing his new gig: a drama-free, family-friendly stint as a guard at the Columbus Museum of Art. What could be better than regular hours, a steady paycheck, and an attractive coworker who may be just as interested in him as he is in her? Right on schedule, Andy’s newfound equilibrium comes crashing down when he interrupts the theft of a painting by famed Ashcan school realist George Bellows—and is promptly fired for breaking museum protocols. Helping him thwart the robbers is a young woman whom Andy has caught staring at him several times at the museum. To his shock, she reveals she’s an adult daughter he never knew he had, the result of a one-night stand during his misspent youth a quarter century earlier. But Alex Rutledge, about to enter the Columbus Police Academy, isn’t looking for family time. She wants to hire her newly discovered father to find the driver who killed her mother, Kate, five months earlier in a still unsolved hit-skip accident. Even as Andy reels from this personal development, he uncovers troubling details about Kate’s death that increasingly point toward murder and an angry anti-vax sentiment roiling below the surface at the hospital where she worked. Complicating Andy’s case, he finds himself in the crosshairs of an FBI investigation into the attempted art theft. With time running out and his and Alex’s lives on the line, Andy rushes to defend his reputation as a private eye and find Kate’s killer.
Winners will be selected on October 4, 2024
