After the sinister disappearance of two highly-paid detectives, former Indianapolis cop, Frank Behr—the unforgettable P.I. introduced in David Levien’s nationally acclaimed novel, City of the Sun—is pulled into his darkest, most relentless case.

When Frank Behr’s friend and mentor is murdered during a suspicious break-in, Behr thirsts for answers and revenge. But before he can pick up the killer's scent, an exclusive private investigation firm approaches him with a case: two of its operatives have gone missing. Prodded to take the case by his old boss—the Indianapolis police captain who holds the strings to returning him to the force—Behr accepts.

The search for the missing detectives takes Behr into the dark recesses of Indianapolis’ underbelly, a place rife with shocking brutality and vice. And when Behr uncovers a thread connecting the detectives to his friend’s brutal murder, he is forced to confront an ominous, deadly new breed of organized crime.

Introduced in City of the Sun, Frank Behr instantly garnered critical attention and a high level of anticipation among thriller aficionados and fans of authors like Michael Connelly and Robert Crais.


From the Compact Disc edition.

1


The morning was gray, and a cool that wouldn't last. Frank Behr steered his Toronado across East Prospect, and appreciated the empty streets at 5:45 a.m. His neck still throbbed from a guillotine choke he had barely escaped a day ago, and he was having trouble turning his head to the left, but at this hour the city was his. He had a jump on the world, and that felt good. As he drove, he tried to leave his mind distant and unfocused. Better not to dwell on the soft bed he'd just left, or on the physical challenge that loomed ahead of him. In twenty minutes time he'd be soaked in sweat, his heart hammering, arms and legs turned to molten lead, as he attempted to gain limb breaking position against a virtually impossible opponent.

Pummeling, clinches, fire feet and sprawl drills, takedowns, guard escapes and technique work. Topped off by lunge walks with a 100lb. ground and pound bag on his shoulder. It was enough to cause a replay of last night's dinner, and that was just for openers, before they began to 'roll,' which was what they called sparring at Aurelio Santos' Brazilian Jiu-jitsu Academy.

Behr cut right on Sherman. There wasn't much traffic, but whatever cars were out at this hour would be along 74, so he avoided it. Behr trained alone with Aurelio himself, and because of that made damn sure he was on time for their six a.m. starts. It was a matter of respect. Behr had tried the normal group classes in the evenings at the Academy, but leaving the hardest thing of the day until the end was exactly the opposite of how it worked for him now. The specter of it tended to hang over his day. It was a concession to his age, he figured, which was a little chunk on the wrong side of forty, but nowadays he needed to clear the physical effort first.

Aurelio charged him the regular fee of a hundred-fifty bucks a month despite the private lessons that should have cost that much per hour. For that, Behr figured, he owed Aurelio plenty. He had to consider, though, that it might not be a straight up favor. Behr had a habit of accidentally breaking people. Six-foot plenty and two-fortyish was a handful for the recreational martial arts practitioner and Behr had caused some unintentional injuries to various training partners during the decade and a half he'd studied karate, boxing, and kickboxing before taking up jiu-jitsu. Regular-sized, civilized, often white-collar folk, plying techniques on someone of his mass and dimension, tended to lose faith in a system when the moves suddenly didn't work. Even those of a much higher belt rank weren't immune. It wasn't unheard of for someone to quit outright and not come back after practicing with him. Plain and simple, Frank Behr could be bad for business. Maybe Aurelio had gamed that out.


* * *


Behr hit a string of green lights along Campbell, letting the big car drift around some potholes, and then steered toward the Academy on Cumberland. He felt it before he saw it, as he rounded the corner and clicked his right turn blinker: there was too much activity in the parking lot, which should've been quiet. His eyes zeroed on a pair of patrol cars, done up in graphite and black, the color scheme for Indianapolis Metro P.D. since the consolidation with the Sheriff's Department, that still wasn't the norm in his mind after all those years of taupe and brown. There was also an ambulance in the lot. The ambulance had its flashers on, no siren. The patrol cars were split, and parked in a wedge, one directly in front of the Academy, the other at the door of the neighboring check cashing establishment.

That doesn't make much sense, Behr thought, as he pulled in and parked and saw that the metal...

 

"City of the Sun is going to be a finalist for thriller of the year."

 

"[Levien] infuses his ... tale with heart-wrenching emotion."

 

"City of the Sun is hard, mean, beautiful, touching--a dazzling novel."

 

"A master character portrait of Behr."

 

"David Levien's novel is moody, riveting, and special."

 

"One of the toughest, most gut-wrenching, and most believable suspense novels I've ever encountered."

 

"Veteran screenwriter David Levien imagines with icy, almost sadistic precision in his thriller City of the Sun."

 

DAVID LEVIEN is the author of City of the Sun. He also cowrote the screenplays for Ocean’s Thirteen, Runaway Jury, Rounders, and the forthcoming Frankie Machine. He lives in...

Where the Dead Lay by David Levien
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