Long Way Down

By Collin Wilcox

A John Doe murder spurs Hastings to confront the leader of a Satanic cult.

For homicide lieutenant Frank Hastings, the day starts with an assassination attempt. During a rally in San Francisco's Civic Center, someone takes a potshot at the governor, sending the whole of downtown into chaos. Once he has taken control of the scene, Hastings chases down the gunman -- a Mexican immigrant with a political bent -- and captures him after a tense standoff. Miraculously, no one is killed. But Hastings's long day is just getting started.

He's barely had time to catch his breath when the call comes in from Noe Valley, where an unidentified man has been found dead on a nude model's floor. All signs point to a simple case of death by jealousy until a second killing upends the investigation, setting Hastings on a collision course with the charismatic leader of a Satanic cult. For this homicide lieutenant, saving the governor will have been the easy part.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Head of Zeus
• Release date: Jun 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781784089085

Collin Wilcox

Collin Wilcox (1924–1996) was an American author of mystery fiction. Born in Detroit, he set most of his work in San Francisco, beginning with 1967’s The Black Door—a noir thriller starring a crime reporter with extrasensory perception. Under the pen name Carter Wick, he published several standalone mysteries including The Faceless Man (1975) and Dark House, Dark Road (1982), but he found his greatest success under his own name, with the celebrated Frank Hastings series. Hastings, a football player turned San Francisco homicide detective, made his debut in The Lonely Hunter (1969), and Wilcox continued to follow him for the rest of his career, publishing nearly two dozen novels in the series, which concludes with Calculated Risk (1995). Wilcox’s other best-known series stars Alan Bernhardt, a theatrical director with a habit of getting involved in behind-the-scenes mysteries. Bernhardt appeared in four more books after his introduction in 1988’s Bernhardt’s Edge.