Two in the Head

By Eric Beetner

When Samantha awakes she is half buried in bricks and the smoke still swirls in the air. The car bomb didn’t kill her—small miracle. Her unfocused eyes see a figure coming nearer. A shape she recognizes somehow. As the person passes by the orange glow from the car fire’s light, she sees the face. Her face. But how?

The other Samantha stands over her and regards her twin. Something is off about this new face. It is her, sure, but harder somehow. The new Sam turns and walks away, back toward the building she came out of before her car exploded. Back to see the two drug kingpins in the top floor offices. And somehow Samantha knows—back to take the deal she just turned down.

Samantha Whelan is a DEA agent, and not always a straight and narrow one. She’s been taking bribes and doing favors for Calder and Rizzo—twin brothers and big players in narco traffic in southern California—for years. She turned down a deal that night, a deal to make her millions, but it meant killing her fiancé, an assistant district attorney building a case against Calder and Rizzo. And it meant betraying her DEA brethren more deeply than she had so far. It was too much. So Calder and Rizzo tried to blow her up.

What happened then...she split. Samantha became Samantha and Sam. Two halves of the same person. The good side and the bad side. The two opposing forces living within her for so long were now free to fight it out to see who will win control.

So begins a nightmarish rocket ride for Samantha to save her life and the lives of everyone she holds dear before Sam, her bad half, can burn it to the ground.

Praise for TWO IN THE HEAD:

“Two In the Head is a straight shot between the eyes. A gangbusters plot, punch-drunk pace, and gut-punch action propel this black hearted thriller from Eric Beetner.” —J. Todd Scott, author of The Far Empty and Lost River

• Language: English
• Publisher: Down & Out Books
• Release date: Jan 18, 2021
• ISBN: 9780463930090

Eric Beetner

Eric Beetner is the author of more than 30 works of crime and thriller fiction. He's received an ITW award nomination, as well as nominations for a Shamus, a Derringer and three Anthony awards. Ken Bruen called him, "The new maestro of Noir." and LitReactor said he was "the 21st century's answer to Jim Thompson." He works as a TV editor and producer and has earned 7 Emmy nominations.

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