Peter Tyler seems to have it all — a beautiful and accomplished wife, a high-powered Wall Street career, a sprawling house in the suburbs. But beneath this perfect surface, things are not what they seem. Haunted by an unhappy childhood, Peter is drifting further and further from his college-sweetheart wife and her ideal of family life; eventually, confused and dissatisfied, he seeks solace in a one-night stand.

Before Peter can fully come to grips with what he's done, his house is broken into and his wife brutally murdered. When the police discover that a mysterious package from Peter's best friend, Andrei, is the only thing missing, they rule out random robbery. When they dig a little deeper and discover Peter's infidelity — combined with his refusal to reveal the identity of his lover — he becomes their prime suspect. To complete the nightmare, Andrei, who might hold the key to everything, has disappeared without a trace.

Forced to run, Peter will have to question everything he has ever believed as he struggles to unravel the truth behind his wife's murder and Andrei's disappearance before the police catch up with him. Along the way he'll encounter an embittered ex-cop with a taste for vengeance, a conniving pharmaceutical conglomerate, the head of an underground AIDS facility with ties to the Russian Mob, a corporate jackal bent on a swindle of epic proportions, and a spectacular act of revenge that will take your breath away.

Whip-smart, lightning-paced, and adrenaline-fueled from first to last, this is a book you won't be able to put down until you know everything.

"'The plot setup of this debut thriller may sound familiar, if not trite: husband and wife in troubled marriage; wife found murdered; police focus on husband as prime suspect; husband must find wife's killer and clear his name. Fortunately, Vance does more than just embroider this theme. After the authorities accuse Peter Tyler, a kingpin at the Wall Street financial firm of Klein and Klein, of his wife's murder, Peter gets entangled in money scams, stolen art, a pharmaceutical giant and a brilliant, ruthless and byzantine act of vengeance. Peter's best friend, Russian business tycoon Andrei Zhilina, may hold the key, but not even Andrei's twin sister, Katya, has been able to contact Andrei in his Moscow office. Peter embarks on a strongly cinematic quest, which takes him from plush Manhattan offices and the Harvard Club to deserted warehouses and meetings with Moscow toughs. Vance's ambitious story line hangs together remarkably well, providing depth and surprises to what otherwise might have been just another fugitive action tale. 100,000 copies. (July)' Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Lee Vance has written a body slam to the mat of a debut thriller. Each page is crammed with well-developed characters real enough to read out and hold. The plot builds to a pitch loud enough to shatter glass. And the dialogue is as true as any seen since the golden days of Frederick Forsyth. There's nothing better than a cool drink and a hot read to cut the burn off the hottest of days — and this book is as hot as a high noon sun." Lorenzo Carcaterra, author of Sleepers and Chasers

"Just as the book cover caused me to do a double take, so did the book itself. At first glance, the plot seemed familiar: a husband whose wife has been murdered finds himself the prime suspect. But look a little closer and there are shadowy depths....[A] fast-paced read." Oregonian

"Vance plays his own excruciatingly complex game with great finesse, balancing the interior drama of Tyler's self-enlightenment with the spiraling complications of the financial crimes and the ripsnorting action of the chase scenes." New York Times

Lee Vance is a graduate of Harvard Business School and a retired general partner of Goldman Sachs Group. He lives in New York City with his wife, Cynthia, and their three children.

From the Paperback edition.