Fever City

Nick Alston, a Los Angeles private investigator, is hired to find the kidnapped son of America's richest and most hated man. Hastings, a mob hitman in search of redemption, is also on the trail. But both men soon become ensnared by a sinister cabal that spreads from the White House all the way to Dealey Plaza. Decades later in Dallas, Alston's son stumbles across evidence from JFK conspiracy buffs that just might link his father to the shot heard round the world. Violent, vivid, visceral: FEVER CITY is a high--octane, nightmare journey through a Mad Men-era America of dark powers, corruption and conspiracy. Review A novel packed with tough-guy poetry, deeply felt emotions and startling images ... [a] superb debut novel. A direct hit. ― Spectator Missing Mad Men? Tim Baker's sprawling, ambitious and atmospheric Fever City is the thriller for you. Moving from the early Sixties to the present day via the bizarre abduction of a hated billionaire's son, this debut author is the natural successor to such hallowed crime writers as Raymond Chandler and James Ellroy. Hard-nosed private eyes, cynical femme fatales and heartbroken hitmen jostle for space against a backdrop of some of the 20th century's most iconic names and moments (the Kennedys, actress Lana Turner and Watergate all make appearances) ... [S]tory-telling at its most ambitious. ― Stylist One story line follows a private eye looking for a tycoon's kidnapped son in Los Angeles in 1960, while another centres on a hit man in the run-up to President Kennedy's assassination in 1963. Baker's scene-painting and dialogue are accomplished, and the conspiracy theory that emerges is ingenious. -- John Dugdale ― Sunday Times A blistering debut of great ambition and scope, realised with the skill of an old pro. ― EVA DOLAN, author of Long Way Home An inventive take on the great American conspiracy theory. ― The Times Crime Club Baker has the audacity to revisit the web of conspiracies surrounding the JFK assassination and despite the sterling previous contributions to the fictional subject by James Ellroy, Don De Lilloand even Stephen King, comes up trumps. This is noir at its darkest, with a palette of doomed characters, femmes fatales who are deadlier than the male, losers and no winners, sprinkled with unsettling appearances by real-life characters ... Considering the subject matter, I was not expecting to even like the book, but was blown away. ― Maxim Jakubowski, LOVEREADING Impressive, Tim Baker paints a lurid, sinister portrait of mid-century America, skillfully layering fact and fiction in a way that will forever change the way you think about the Kennedy assassination. ― PETER SWANSON, author of The Kind Worth Killing A brilliantly conceived and executed thriller that deftly combines smack-you-in-the-mouth intensity with imagery and prose to die for. It's beautifully stark, brutal when it needs to be, and thoroughly engrossing. ― ROD REYNOLDS, author of The Dark Inside Hits you like a cannonball. Bursting at the seams with grand ideas, sultry femme fatales and haunted men, Baker sketches a phantasmagorical collision of history, coincidence and conspiracy as the search for a missing boy leads into the dark recesses of the JFK assassination. Turbo-charged, beautifully written and with a precise control of detail, Fever City is one of those mind-blowingly ambitious debuts that only comes along once in a blue moon. ― STAV SHEREZ, author of A Dark Redemption 'Fever City takes multiple story threads and binds them with the elements of a conspiracy theory stretching back more than fifty years. Come for the premise, but stay for the execution. Tim Baker's work as a novelist and researcher is impressive.' ― SAM HAWKEN, author of the Borderland Trilogy and the Camaro Espinoza series Book Description Fever City , this year's hottest thriller Author Bio Born into a showbiz family in Sydney, Tim Baker lived in Rome and Madrid before moving