FINALIST FOR THE EDGAR AWARD—BEST FIRST NOVEL
In a daring operation, two crooks-for-hire rob an Atlantic City casino. But their heist goes horribly wrong, and only one of them makes it out alive. Now he's on the run with half a million dollars vacuum-packed into a bundle the size of a briefcase. Little does he know it's rigged with explosives.
Almost immediately, an expert fixer named Jack is in cross-country pursuit. With less than foty-eight hours to recover the money, clean up the mess, and—for god's sake—try not to botch the job like he did last time....
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
A Booklist Best Mystery of the Year
Winner of The Strand Critics' Award
Winner of the Crime Writers' Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award
“A pulse-pumping heist thriller.” —
Rolling Stone
“Smoking-fast. . . . The debut of a gifted crime writer.” —
The New York Times“Fast, hard and knowing: this is an amazing debut full of intrigue, tradecraft and suspense. Read it immediately!” —Lee Child
“A tense and tightly coiled debut thriller.” —
Entertainment Weekly “A stunningly accomplished debut. . . . [Hobbs] has the talent to fuel bestsellers and summer blockbusters for years to come.” —
The Richmond Times-Dispatch“Richly imagined and darkly fascinating.” —
San Francisco Chronicle “A super-slick thriller.”—
New York Daily News “Stylishly gritty and fast-paced.” —
O, The Oprah Magazine “A first-time novelist who’s . . . already writing with the poise of an old pro. . . . Hobbs is an assured stylist who favors clean, precise prose, [and] handles violence with a lyric touch.” —
The New York Times Book Review “
Ghostman is terrific: lightning-quick, absolutely compelling, and smart as all get-out.”—
The Seattle Times “Crackling with action.” —
Bloomberg News “Wonderfully hard-boiled.” —
Parade “A gripping adrenaline rush, a dirty bomb of a crime thriller with a deceptive plot that confounds and stimulates characters and readers alike.” —
Portland Monthly “What [Lee] Child’s debut novel,
Killing Floor, did for thrillers, Hobbs does for crime novels.” —
Arizona Republic “Hobbs is up there with the best. I don't think I've read a better botched heist than the one that begins
Ghostman. It's a masterpiece of hyper-kinetic blocking and deep, vivid detail.”—John O’Connell,
The Guardian (London)
“A propulsive thriller that combines incredible detail and unstoppable narrative drive. . . . Hobbs possesses a [Lee] Child-like ability for first unleashing and then shrewdly directing a tornado of a plot, but he also evokes Elmore Leonard in the subtle interplay of his characters. A triumph on every level.” —
Booklist (starred review)
“This watertight debut [is] at once slick and gritty. . . Straight out of the gate, Hobbs has mastered the essentials of a contemporary thriller: a noir-like tone, no-nonsense prose and a hero with just enough personality to ensure he doesn’t come off as an amoral death machine [as well as] heart-stopping scenes that illustrate how small mistakes can turn catastrophic.” —
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
