Set in New York, the novel follows the adventures of ex-con Dick, who comes round from what feels like quite a bender to find that there's a corpse in the boot of his Oldsmobile. It's Dot, recently his boss on the Breakout Program and also his on/off girlfriend. That's bad enough, but Dick honestly doesn't know whether he shot her himself or whether someone else did it. Meanwhile Dot's friend Lydia is wondering what the hell has happened to her co-conspirator - they've been embezzling the company and they're due to fly to Nassau with the proceeds shortly. And if Dick needed any more bad news, Dot's former squeeze, the very powerful, very clever, very dangerous Nestor Garcia, is headed for Manhattan, having decided he wants Dot back. He won't be at all happy to discover that the chances of a reconciliation are nil.

'Fresh from five years in prison for a pot bust in California, Dick Miller tries to go straight in his hometown of New York City in Quinlan's fine second thriller (after 2006's Smoked). Miller wants to parlay the skills he used in prison--typing--into a job, but instead gets roped into shady work by an old high school buddy who runs a lucrative chop shop. After having a few too many drinks one night, Miller discovers the dead body of his girlfriend, Dot Racine, in the trunk of his car. Miller has no idea who killed her; for all he knows, he may have done it and was too drunk to remember. It's not for a couple of days--! with Dot still in the trunk--that Miller finds out she had been stealing gobs of money from her employer and that lots of Publishers Weekly 'Dismembered bodies and other nasty greetings begin to fall out of Quinlan's unhurried prose' Financial Times 'An artfully plotted yarn... Quinlan has something of [Elmore] Leonard's gift for making his amoral cast sympathetic, even lovable, though the real baddie... is memorably nasty' Telegraph 'Quinlan is a confident storyteller who revels in twists and turns' Metro 'This is the stuff - violent, pacy, stylish and funny' Mirror 'The plot hurtles along like an express train to its smashing climax' Publishers Weekly 'I love this author... SMOKED was a gem and this follows the same line portraying the underbelly of criminal life... in another well-plotted, violent caper' Sarah Broadhurst, Bookseller 'A superb debut. A great crime novel. Brilliant is the word' Independent on Sunday '[A] well-plotted New York thriller... Quinlan delights in wrong-footing the reader' Observer '[F]ast-moving fun, with real bite...Quinlan brings us great, smart, hardcore stuff from the land of the free and the home of the crazy brave!' Hobart Mercury, Australia 'Quinlan creates memorable characters and off-the-wall plots' Mail on Sunday

Patrick Quinlan grew up in New York, the youngest child in a big, noisy Irish-American family. He has worked in journalism and politics. He lives on the coast of Maine with his wife.