Fury: A Novel - Hardcover

Ford, G.M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0380977249 ISBN 13: 9780380977246

Publisher: William Morrow, 2001

Synopsis

What fires the blood, freezes the heart, twists the mind and drives a person to kill?

G. M. Ford, author of the critically acclaimed Leo Waterman mystery novels, returns with a stunning tale of serial lies, corruption, and murder -- and throws an unforgettable new pair of investigators into the mad cosmopolitan mix of present-day Seattle.

Frank Corso is a difficult man. A defrocked journalist vilified for allegedly making up "facts" on a major crime story while working for the sacrosanct New York Times, he now lives in virtual seclusion on a boat moored on the opposite end of the country -- surviving on the substantial royalties from a bestselling book and on his pay for the occasional column in a local tabloid, the Seattle Sun. Yet it's Corso whom the slow and sheltered Leanne Samples asks for when she walks into the Sun offices and announces that her courtroom testimony, which put Walter Leroy Himes on Death Row, was a lie.

Several years earlier, eight Seattle women were slain over the course of eighty days, their bodies carefully displayed in Dumpsters throughout the city by a maniac whom the press dubbed "the Trashman." Leanne Samples would have been victim number nine, she claimed at the time, had she not barely escaped from the clutches of Walter Himes, a large, unwashed, prime sociopathic example of wasted humanity Now Himes is only six days away from execution and everyone wants him dead: the victims' families, the police, the general populace ... even the mayor himself. And Himes will die, unless Frank Corso can quickly change a public opinion that the public does not want changed.

But this death train may be impossible for Corso to derail, even with the able assistance of photographer Meg Dougherty. Despite Leanne's shocking confession, the authorities seem unusually keen on having Himes disposed of permanently. And highly situated members of the Seattle PD refuse to consider requesting a stay of execution -- even in the face of the most startling evidence of all: a brutal new murder that bears the Trashman's unmistakable signature.

With the clock relentlessly ticking down to Lethal Injection Day, Corso and Dougherty have suddenly made powerful, perhaps deadly, new enemies by getting themselves deeply into something that goes far beyond right, wrong, truth, and justice. And the key to a case that again threatens to devastate a city now ties in a hastily scrawled "tag" on an alley wall: the first three spray-painted letters of one angry word ... Fury.

About this title

About the Author

G.M. Ford is the author of six widely praised Frank Corso novels, Fury, Black River, A Blind Eye, Red Tide, No Man's Land, and Blown Away, as well as six highly acclaimed mysteries featuring Seattle private investigator Leo Waterman. A former creative writing teacher in western Washington, Ford lives in Oregon and is currently working on his next novel.

From Publishers Weekly

Frank Corso, a renegade journalist with a conscience and a penchant for solitude, makes a winning debut in this new series from the author of the Leo Waterman novels (The Bum's Rush, etc.). Booted out of New York City and nearly out of journalism because of a nasty libel suit, Corso is taken on by the third-rate Seattle Sun and its proprietor, the steely Natalie Van Der Hoven. One of Frank's early pieces for the Sun examined the investigation of the "Trashman" crimes, a series of gruesome rapes and murders. The suspect, Walter Leroy Himes, was unsavory enough, but Corso wasn't convinced that he was the Trashman. Now Himes's execution date is fast approaching, and his principal accuser suddenly reveals that she was badgered into fingering Himes. As soon as Corso asks a question or two around the Seattle police department, the whole place starts alternately squirming and blustering. Corso enlists Meg Dougherty, a freelance photographer with legal training, as his assistant. Meg is covered head to toe with bizarre tattoos, thanks to a malicious boyfriend and one night of drugged sleep. More importantly, she's sharp and tough. Instead of ending with the pair sniffing out the real Trashman, Ford tweaks his tale a few more times, with missing evidence, secret lovers and a parent gone mad with grief. There's a love story here, too, tender and solid, that sneaks up on the reader and on the couple in question. Only a master could serve up such a fine story and then some. (May 1)Forecast: With a blurb from Harlan Coben, plus the popularity of the six Leo Waterman novels, this one could push Ford onto mystery bestseller charts.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0380977249
• ISBN 13: 9780380977246
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336