Nightshade

Okay, check this out. We have a cop, Detective Stilwell, a homicide detective from the big city. But thanks to some messy department politics, he’s been “exiled”—yeah, basically put in timeout on the serene, picturesque Catalina Island. His new gig? Dealing with tourists who’ve had a few too many and the occasional petty theft. It’s supposed to be his escape, a low-key post where he can just lay low.

But you know that’s never how these things work, right? Of course, trouble finds him. Big trouble. A body surfaces in the harbor, weighed down, a Jane Doe identifiable only by a streak of purple dye in her hair. They start calling her “Nightshade.” The case is instantly gripping, a dark mystery staining the island's pristine waters.

And get this—at the same time, a seemingly routine poaching case spirals into something far more dangerous. Stilwell starts digging into the background of a powerful island bigwig and uncovers a seriously shady past. He decides to work both cases, going way outside his jurisdiction and ticking off all the wrong people, including an old rival from the mainland who seems hell-bent on making his life miserable.

Stilwell is completely obsessed, breaking every rule in the book because he’s convinced he’s the only one who can get justice for “Nightshade.” This is the world crafted by the one and only Michael Connelly, whom the Real Book Spy calls the "undisputed master of the modern crime novel." This instant #1 New York Times bestseller introduces a fantastic new character to his universe. That idyllic paradise? It has a dark, beating heart, and Stilwell is about to rip it wide open.