'An intelligent and compelling story with characters that will capture you from the start. 'Thriller fans should keep their eyes on Eskens he's a comer.' - BOOKLIST Suspense Magazine BEST BOOKS OF 2014/DEBUT AUTHOR ITW Thriller Awards Finalist, BEST FIRST NOVEL Minnesota Book Award Finalist, BEST GENRE NOVEL WINNER! Silver Falchion Award, BEST FIRST NOVEL: traditionalĢ015 Edgar® Award Finalist, BEST FIRST NOVEL WINNER! Barry Award, BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL WINNER! Left Coast Crime Rosebud Award, BEST DEBUT MYSTERY

MICHAEL SEARS, award-winning author of the bestselling Jason Stafford seriesĪWARD RECOGNITION FOR ESKENS' DEBUT, THE LIFE WE BURY : Eskens’s characters will haunt you long after you finish reading.” “Another great, dark, and brooding page-turner from Allen Eskens, with a tragic protagonist who will break your heart. HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN, Agatha, Anthony, and Mary Higgins Clark Award–winning author of Truth Be Told With a deadly surprise around every corner and a bleak undercurrent of noir-like dread, this book will haunt you.” With precision and authority, Eskens’s determined cop hero takes one intriguing clue-and pursues it into spiraling disaster. “The talented Allen Eskens fulfills the rich promise of his Edgar®-nominated debut with this chilling, dark, and sinister thriller. ―WILLIAM KENT KRUEGER, New York Times–bestselling author of the Edgar® Award–winning Ordinary Grace

After each unexpected twist, you’ll tell yourself things can’t get any worse. It’s a taut, intelligent, heart-ripping story that explores the darkest places in the human psyche. “Eskens has conjured up a marvelously black spirit of a novel. 'With just two books to his name, I have put on my ‘must read’ list.” 'Readers looking for a new voice should pay attention to Eskens.” “Eskens’s elegant but chilly prose, like winter in the blood, is well suited to this fiercely told morality tale (and its deeply cynical ending), which is sure to send all of us wretched sinners straight to hell.”

Allen eskens the guise of another