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BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Tom Piccirilli's *The Last Kind Words.* Chase was raised as a getaway driver by his grandfather, Jonah, a con man feared by even the hardened career criminals who make up his crew. But when Jonah crosses the line and murders one of his own, Chase goes solo, stealing cars and pulling scores across the country….And then he meets Lila, a strong-willed deputy sheriff with a beguiling smile who shows him what love can be. Chase is on the straight and narrow for the first time in his life—until tragedy hits, and he must reenter the dark world of grifters and crooks. Now Chase is out for revenge—and he’ll have to turn to the one man he hates most in the world. Only Jonah can teach Chase how to become a stone-cold killer. But even as the two men work together, Chase knows that their unresolved past will eventually lead them to a showdown of their own. ### From Publishers Weekly Orphaned at 10—his mother murdered, his father a suicide—Chase was raised by his grandfather Jonah, a grifter who has used Chase as a getaway driver. After Jonah shoots one of his crew during a poker game, Chase, at 21, realizing that the icy old man could easily turn on his own grandson, strikes off on his own. He works his way around the country stealing cars and driving for petty thieves until one night in Mississippi he runs up against deputy sheriff Lila Bodeen, who sees something in this brash young outlaw that she likes. Tragedy puts Chase back on the road, where he faces not only the killer but the truth—about himself and his shattered family. Piccirilli (*The Midnight Road*, etc.) tells the gritty, violent and dark tale in an appealingly noirish narrative style, highly economical yet bracingly intimate. *(May)* Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. ### Review “[Tom Piccirilli’s] prose has the visceral punch of the best pulp writers of the past century…. **The Cold Spot** is both funny and ferocious.”—*San Francisco Chronicle. * "A powerful, hard-hittng, fiercely original writer of suspense. I highly recommend him." —David Morrell, author of *Creepers * "Tom Piccirilli's fiction is visceral and unflinching, yet deeply insightful."—F. Paul Wilson, author of *The Keep *and *Bloodline * "**The Cold Spot** is truly dazzling. Piccirilli has taken the mystery to a whole other level."—Ken Bruen, award-winning author of *The Guards * "Blackest noir, the most minimal kind of minimalism, and at the same time deeply emotional: this is not easy to do. I loved **The Cold Spot**."—Peter Abrahams, bestselling author of *Nerve Damage * "Lean, brutal and completely arresting, Tom Piccirilli's **The Cold Spot** is a bull's-eye hardboiled tale."—Megan Abbott, author of *The Song is You * "**The Cold Spot **is crime fiction at its very best, an exceptional revenge story so vivid you feel like you're in the back seat of a getaway car with a master storyteller at the wheel."—Jason Starr, author of *The Follower * *From the Paperback edition.*