cover image Just One Bite

Just One Bite

Jack Heath. Hanover Square, $26.99 (352p) ISBN 978-1-335-95284-4

Australian author Heath’s tightly plotted sequel to 2018’s Hangman finds former FBI informant Timothy Blake working for Charlie Warner, the all-powerful crime boss of Houston, by disposing of the bodies of her victims. Blake is pulled back into helping the FBI by agent Reese Thistle, a friend who shared part of his traumatized childhood. Thistle is looking into the case of Kenneth Biggs, a math professor who’s gone missing. The Houston police tracked his cell phone signal to a Louisiana garbage dump, but a visit to the dump turned up nothing. When Blake sees a picture of Biggs, he knows exactly where the man is—in his freezer—but of course he can’t tell Thistle that. Heath cleverly peels the onion of Blake’s unspeakable secret, revealing bite-size hints as it becomes clear just how he gets rid of the bodies . Some readers are bound to be repulsed, and yet others with a taste for black humor will cheer, however queasily, for this antihero. Agent: Daniel Kirschen, ICM. (June)