You Can Go Home Now: A Novel

By Michael Elias

In this smart, relevant, unputdownable psychological thriller, a woman cop is on the hunt for a killer while battling violent secrets of her own.

“My name is Nina Karim. I am a single thirty-one-year-old woman who likes cats, Ryan Reynolds movies, beautiful sunsets, walking on a wintry beach holding hands with a tall, caring, lightly bearded third-wave feminist. Yeah, right.”

Nina is a tough Queens detective with a series of cold case homicides on her desk – men whose widows had the same alibi: they were living in Artemis, a battered women’s shelter, when their husbands were killed.

Nina goes undercover into Artemis. Though she is playing the victim, she’s anything but. Nina knows about violence and the bullies who rely on it because she’s experienced it in her own life.

In this heart-pounding thriller Nina confronts the violence of her own past in Artemis where she finds solidarity with a community of women who deal with abusive and lethal men in their own way.

For the women living in Artemis there is no absolute moral compass, there is the law and there is survival.  And, for Nina, who became a cop so she could find the man who murdered her father, there is only revenge. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Jun 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9780062954183

Michael Elias

<p>Michael Elias is a screenwriter and novelist. His credits include <em>The Jerk, Lush Life</em> and the novel <em>The Last Conquistador</em>. He  lives in Paris and Los Angeles. </p><p></p>

Reviews for You Can Go Home Now

[twink_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I like finding new authors or taking a chance on a book. Such was the case with the newly released You Can Go Home Now by Michael Elias.Nina Karim is a tough Queens detective. Ask her why she became a cop and she'll give you her stock answer - but not the truth. The truth is she wants revenge on the man who killed her father. Until she hunts him down, she works cold cases. A disturbing pattern emerges as she peruses the latest stack of files. Dead men - and all their widows were in the same shelter.Right off the bat, I liked Nina - her irreverence for authority, her drive for answers and her own brand of justice. I'm a sucker for troubled lead characters. Supporting players were just as well drawn. Nina's boyfriend, a loan shark is more often the voice of reason. But he too is happy to bend rules.Elias is a screenwriter and that skill added wonderfully to the 'readability' of the book. (It kind of reads like a movie) The emotions, twists, turns and action all leapt off the page. The dialogue, the investigations, the settings all really well done. And there's lots of current social issues woven in to the plot. It moves along at a good pace. There are a few plot pieces that I wondered about, but didn't detract from my enjoyment of the book.But what I liked the most? Nina. She was a fantastic protagonist. And I'd like to hope that the little opening left in the final pages is enough to bring Nina (and Bobby B.) back for a second book. Gentle readers - there are some triggering scenes and topics in this novel.