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Life isn't panning out for Maureen Coughlin. At twenty-nine, the tough-skinned Staten Island native's only excitement comes from... well, not much. A fresh pack of American Spirits, maybe, or a discreet dash of coke before work. If something doesn't change soon, she'll end up a "lifer" at the Narrows, the faux-swank bar where she works one long night after another. But just like the island, the Narrows has its seamy side.
After work one night, Maureen walks in on a tryst between her co-worker Dennis and Frank Sebastian, a silver-haired politico. When Sebastian demands her silence, Maureen is more than happy to forget what she's seen - until Dennis turns up dead on the train tracks the next morning. The murder sends Maureen careening out of her stultifying routine and into fast-deepening trouble. Soon she's on the run through the seedy underbelly of the borough, desperate to stop Sebastian before Dennis's fate becomes her own.
"Starred Review. Loehfelm expertly ramps up the suspense, taking the reader on a dark ride, not just through the seedier side of Staten Island but into Nat Waters's own past, when he and Sebastian were young cops." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. Character drives this follow-up to Loehfelm's fine Bloodroot (2009); the deeply conflicted Maureen, in particular, is brilliantly developed.... [A] must for crime-fiction lovers." - Booklist
"It's a fast, rough ride you can't put down." - Colin Harrison, author of The Finder
"The Devil She Knows is nothing short of terrific. An absolutely original voice, and a story that grabs you by the throat and doesn't ever, ever, ever even think of letting go." - John Lescroart, author of Damage
"Bill Loehfelm, a rising star in crime fiction, just keeps rising higher: The Devil She Knows is a taut, knowing story, and Maureen Coughlin is a hero for the ages, a character who jumps off the page and demands the reader's full attention and empathy from the very start." - Laura Lippman, author of I'd Know You Anywhere
This information about The Devil She Knows was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Celeste Marshall
Bill Loehfelm is the author of The Devil in Her Way, The Devil She Knows, Bloodroot, and Fresh Kills. He lives in New Orleans with his wife, the writer AC Lambeth, and plays drums in the Ibervillains, a rock-and-soul cover band.
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