The System - Hardcover

Gattis, Ryan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1509843833 ISBN 13: 9781509843831

Publisher: Picador, 2020

Synopsis

Thriller of the Month in The Times and the Guardian.
Book of the Week in the Daily Telegraph.

The System can save you, or it can break you . . .

On the sixth of December 1993, a drug dealer named Scrappy is shot and left for dead on her mother’s lawn in South Central Los Angeles. A heroin addict witnesses the shooting and seizes the moment to steal Scrappy’s drugs, as well as the handgun that was dropped at the scene. When he’s busted, he names two local gang members as the shooters.

There’s only one problem: one of them is guilty; the other, innocent. None of that matters, though, when the gun turns up again – miles from where the shooting happened – and both are arrested. Innocent or not, the gang tells them both to keep their mouths shut and take their charges.

With these two off the streets, Little, the unlikeliest of new gang members, is given a very serious job: discover how the gun got moved, who moved it, and why. Because it had to be a frame-up and the cops had to be involved. Hadn't they?

Played out in the streets, precincts, jails, and courtrooms of Los Angeles, The System by Ryan Gattis is a breakneck journey through every phase of the American criminal justice system. It is the story of a crime – from the moments before shots are fired, to the verdict and its violent aftershocks – told through the vivid chorus of those involved: the guilty, the innocent, the victim, the families who love them, and those simply doing their jobs. After all, justice is a matter of perspective.

About this title

About the Author

Ryan Gattis is the author of Safe, Kung Fu High School, and All Involved, which won the American Library Association’s Alex Award and the Lire Award for Noir of the Year in France. He lives and writes in South Los Angeles, where he is a member of art collective UGLARworks, a founding board member of arts non-profit Heritage Future, and a PEN America Prison Writing Mentor.

From the Back Cover

Praise for Safe
‘A thrilling heist novel with a big beating heart’ Paula Hawkins, author of Girl on the Train
‘Safe is a propulsive thriller that confirms Ryan Gattis as one of our most gifted novelists.’ Michael Connelly, creator of the Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller series
‘Tenderness in the midst of stories of brutality, Safe is the perfect read to have in your suitcase’ GQ
‘A literary novel and a thriller with more twists than a DVD box-set make quite a combination. There is a lathed quality to Ryan Gattis’s prose, which is reminiscent of Raymond Carver or Ernest Hemingway.’ Scotsman
‘No ordinary gangster cat-and-mouse chase . . . Gattis has created a gripping novel about opportunity, transformation and hope.’ Observer
Praise for All Involved
‘A symphonic, pitch-perfect, superlative novel. It is visceral and adrenalin-fuelled, yet tender and even darkly comic. It is audacious, unflinching and subversive. It doesn’t judge. It swallowed me whole.’ David Mitchell

Edition details

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1509843833
• ISBN 13: 9781509843831
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 432