City of Echoes
PRAISE FOR ROBERT ELLIS
Murder Season
“Murder Season: a terrific sick-soul-of-LA thriller. Before you can say Chinatown we are immersed in a tale of mind-boggling corruption where virtually every character in the book—with the exception of Lena—has a hidden agenda. Ellis is a master plotter. Along the way we meet wonderful characters.”
—Connecticut Post, Hearst Media News Group
“Within the space of a few books, Ellis has demonstrated that rare ability to skillfully navigate his readers through a complex plot filled with interesting, dangerous, and surprising characters.”
—Bookreporter.com
“Best Mystery/Crime Novels of 2011.”
—Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine
“Top Twelve Books of 2011.”
—Miami Examiner
The Lost Witness
“Scorching. Deliciously twisted. Nothing is what it appears to be. Ellis succeeds masterfully in both playing fair and pulling surprise after surprise in a story that feels like a runaway car plunging down a mountain road full of switchbacks.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Ellis serves up a killer crime tale with riveting characters and relentless twists.”
—Booklist, starred review
“Ellis piles on the Hollywood atmosphere and procedural detail, and the end revelation is expertly timed and genuinely shocking.”
—The Guardian (UK)
“The Lost Witness is a tough thriller that makes Ellis a name to watch.”
—The Evening
Telegraph (UK)
“The Lost Witness is another gripping story by a writer who knows the seamy LA underworld well.”
—Toronto Sun
City of Fire
“Los Angeles, under a cloud of acrid smoke . . . Robert Ellis’s City of Fire is a gripping, spooky crime novel.”
—The New York Times Hot List Pick
“City of Fire is my kind of crime novel. Gritty, tight and assured. Riding with Detective Lena Gamble through the hills of Los Angeles is something I could get used to. She’s tough, smart, and most of all, she’s real.”
—Michael Connelly
“City of Fire by Robert Ellis is a no-holds-barred barn burner of a thriller that blends Los Angeles–style crime fiction à la Michael Connelly with pulse-pounding Dean Koontzian psychological suspense. Like Connelly’s gritty Bosch saga, City of Fire features a tough but deeply flawed protagonist, a tantalizingly complex plot, fully realized—and realistic—characters, and most of all, a palpable intensity. And if that weren’t enough, the bombshell plot twist at the novel’s conclusion makes this an absolute must-read for thriller aficionados.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Robert Ellis’s brisk, complex City of Fire is hot stuff. Ellis excels at vivid writing and the expert plotting keeps the reader off-kilter. Ellis takes the police procedural and makes it a tale of personal corruption and desire, where right and wrong overlap. Here, the answers aren’t easy as Lena wonders about ‘blowback . . . what the truth could do to a soul.’ LA, which is written about so often, seems fresh in the hands of an original storyteller such as Ellis.”
—Best Mysteries of 2007, Oline H. Cogdill, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
“City of Fire begins like a roller coaster, building tension, anxiety and fear. Then it plunges at full speed, spiraling and twisting through scenes that will have hearts pounding and fingers flying through the pages. But there is no smooth braking to a stop in this book. It careens to the end and then flies off the rail with a shocking twist that will leave readers stunned. Robert Ellis is a master of suspense.”
—Mystery Scene
ALSO BY ROBERT ELLIS
Murder Season
The Lost Witness
City of Fire
The Dead Room
Access to Power
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2015 Robert Ellis
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781477827727
ISBN-10: 1477827722
Cover design by Marc Cohen
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014959519
This novel is dedicated to my friend Denny Donahue
CONTENTS
START READING
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
“The power to guess the unseen from the seen, to trace the implications of things, to judge the whole piece by the pattern, the condition of feeling life in general so completely that you are well on your way to knowing any particular corner of it—this cluster of gifts may almost be said to constitute experience.”
—Henry James
CHAPTER 1
Matthew Trevor Jones shivered as he walked down the sidewalk and entered the restaurant. He could feel a cool breeze sweep across the back of his neck, the door snapping shut behind him. When the cold air finally dissipated, he started toward the bar, searching for a familiar face but not finding one.
It was Tuesday night, and he could smell corned beef and cabbage, fifty-dollar steaks with twice-baked potatoes, and that long list of other scents and fragrances that usually accompany a crowded dining room. He could feel his body warming up to it all, the tension of the day beginning to fade and die out.
The moment was exceedingly pleasant.
When his friend had suggested that they meet at Musso & Frank to celebrate his promotion to Hollywood Homicide, Matt thought about the pricey menu, but only for a second or two. He was excited about his new job as a homicide detective—stoked to be working in Hollywood in spite of the commute he would be facing every day between here and his house on the Westside. But even more, Musso & Frank was the oldest grill in LA, and he loved everything about the place: the waitstaff storming in and out of the kitchen, the sound of loud chatter, of laughter, forks and knives and plates being gathered and stacked—that thunderous din that somehow seemed so soothing as it struck the wood-paneled walls and laughed out loud, refusing to be dampened or quieted or shut down.
1 comment