The Death and Life of Bobby Z » (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Edition)

Don Winslow has worked as a private investigator in London, New York City, and elsewhere in the United States, and as a consultant to law firms and insurance companies for more than fifteen years.

When Tim Kearney, a small-time criminal, slits the throat of a Hell's Angel and draws a life sentence in a prison full of gang members, he knows he’s pretty much a dead man. That’s until the DEA makes Kearney an offer: impersonate the late, legendary dope smuggler Bobby Z so that the agency can trade him for one of their own, who was captured by a Mexican drug kingpin. Knowing his chances of survival are a little better than in prison, Kearney accepts, and he winds up in the middle of a desert at the notorious drug lord’s lavish compound. To his surprise he meets Bobby Z's old flame, Elizabeth, and her son. At first, it’s a short vacation by the pool, but when things turn bloody, the three of them begin the most desperate flight of their lives, with drug lords, bikers, Indians, and cops furiously chasing after them. Whether he pulls it off, whether he can keep the kid and the girl and his life, makes this compelling novel a hilarious, fast-paced thriller about a con caught in a devil’s bargain.

Publishers Weekly

Thrown out of the Marine Corpsdespite heroics in the Gulf Warfor a lack of "impulse control," locked up first for burglary and then for an unwitting armed robbery, three-time loser Tim Kearney is in big trouble in the big house. He's killed a Hell's Angel named Stinkdog with a sharpened license plate in preemptive self-defense. To sidestep the wrath of the Angels, Tim jumps at an only slightly less dangerous proposal from the FBI. They want him to impersonate recently deceased, legendary drug smuggler Bobby Z, so they can trade him for a captured agent. Of course the deal goes sour, and soon Tim has a whole spectrum of nasty enemies out to finish him off. To survive he must grow into his new role, donning all the legendary powers of Bobby Z and a few new ones of his own. Winslow's swift, sardonic narrative brims with cinematic possibilities as Tim and a few deftly etched pals with hearts as pure as his (including a game and clever six-year-old boy) careen from desert to beach to the San Diego zoo in a blur of explosive action. With a keen ear for punk criminal patois, a generous dose of irony and a plethora of memorable bad guys, Winslow, in the best Elmore Leonard tradition, pilots this engaging Southern California thriller from one cliff-hanger to the next. At the same time, this author of the Neal Carey mysteries (While Drowning in the Desert, 1996) steers his writing and his career to a whole new level. 100,000 first printing; major ad/promo; film rights to Warner Brothers; simultaneous Random House audio; author tour. (May)