cover image Dr. Knox

Dr. Knox

Peter Spiegelman. Knopf, $26.95 (368p) ISBN 978-0-307-96127-3

Dr. Adam Knox, the eponymous narrator of this propulsive, intrigue-filled thriller from Shamus Award–winner Spiegelman (Thick as Thieves), runs a health clinic near Los Angeles, treating addicts, transients, prostitutes, and other disenfranchised patients. To help fund his humanitarian efforts, Knox does discreet after-hours home visits for celebrities and criminals, who pay well for Knox’s silence. When a battered, terrified young Romanian woman brings in a very sick boy and then vanishes, Knox is left with a difficult choice: should he contact Child Protection Services, or try to track the boy’s mother down on his own? A group of Russian thugs soon shows up demanding the child, and Knox finds himself in way over his head. With the help of his friend Ben Sutter, a former Special Forces operator, Knox investigates and becomes entangled in a seedy underworld of human traffickers and Russian mobsters. Spiegelman expertly doles out the suspense, while leaving his protagonist with some difficult moral choices of his own. [em]Author tour. Agent: Denise Marcil, Denise Marcil Literary Agency, LLC. (July) [/em]