My Name Was Gerry Sass

From its opening pages, public radio host Hanssen’s knockout debut, which orbits around the death of a genteel hit man in the 1980s Midwest, hums with suppressed menace. Contract killer Gerry Sass lives a quiet life in Mystic, Iowa, with his teenage daughter Early, taking occasional hit jobs from the Chicago mob and laundering the proceeds through the country music station he owns. That fragile equilibrium shatters when two men kidnap Gerry and kill him in the woods, a murder witnessed by his friend, Father Dan, a milquetoast Catholic priest who survives the encounter by staying hidden. Fearing her deadbeat mother may be the men’s next target, an ill-equipped but relentless Early takes off in Gerry’s prized Mustang, hellbent on tracking down the killers and avenging her father’s death. Meanwhile, Father Dan’s guilt over failing to intervene sparks a reckoning with his lapsed faith and his family’s ties to organized crime, and the local sheriff attempts to piece together the truth behind Gerry’s murder. Fast, funny, and emotionally complex, Hanssen’s thriller suggests that guilt and family trauma will catch up to even the craftiest evaders. It’s an auspicious first outing. Agent: Barbara Jones, Stuart Krichevsky Literary. (May)