Thomas Laird’s new crime novel THE UNDERGROUND DETECTIVE publishing soon!

March 21, 2012 - PRLog -- A serial killer thrill-ride set on the streets of Chicago, author Thomas Laird’s new novel The Underground Detective (400 pp and $16.95) is released on April 14, 2012 by Parkgate Press / Dionysus Books.

A review by Michael Malone, author of the best-selling Foolscap and Handling Sin, says:

“In The Underground Detective, Thomas Laird creates a compelling world. He is a natural storyteller with an instinct for the right turn of gritty phrase and an authentic feel for his Chicago cops and killers, hookers and addicts. It’s a world as fast-moving, as real, as tough and as heartbreaking as the streets his characters walk.”

It’s 1987, and a world before cellphones and DNA. Former Army Ranger and Vietnam vet, divorced Danny Mangan is a Chicago cop weary from fifteen years on the force. But he can't rest now he's trailing a serial killer with a penchant for attacking African-American prostitutes—a grim world of deception where everyone has a public price and a private fix....

What follows when a member of Danny’s own family is hunted by the killer is excruciating. So will Danny’s drug-loving daughter Kelly and bisexual partner Lila help or complicate his work? The Underground Detective is a modern fable, absorbing, imaginative and terrifying. Here is polished crime writing, the dark sheen after the rains have cleaned the streets of Chicago. A treat of human foibles, weaknesses, attractions and heartbreak, where only love and family are the saving grace....

Thomas Laird has published four novels: Cutter (2001), Season of the Assassin (2003), Black Dog (2004) and Voices of the Dead (2006). The books received favorable reviews from the Washington Post, the Chicago Sun-Times, Publisher’s Weekly, Library Journal, The Independent on Sunday (UK) and Crime Time (UK). Thomas Laird lives in Peoria, Illinois.

ISBN 978-1-937056-60-5

To place orders for The Underground Detective, contact:


Parkgate Press / Dionysus Books
7796 Marshall Heights Court
Falls Church, Virginia 22043
Email: orders@parkgatepress.com
Website: http://www.parkgatepress.com

To arrange a book signing or interview, contact editor@parkgatepress.com.

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We are currently accepting Parkgate Press submissions in the genres of fiction (literary, crime and historical), non-fiction (biography, history and science), academic books (Ph.D. dissertations/monographs) and poetry.