Mortal Bonds

The follow-up to the Edgar-nominated and Shamus-winning Black Fridays, Mortal Bonds marks the return of financial investigator Jason Stafford as he takes on his latest—and most dangerous—case, in a tale of fraud and the hunt for salvation as gripping and fresh as the last. William von Becker ran one of the largest privately held investment banks in North America, until the bottom fell out, and the world saw the entire operation revealed as a scam. After von Becker dies in prison, Jason Stafford is hired by his family. There's still a lot of missing money out there, he's told, and they want Stafford to find it before the Feds—and certain other parties, some of whom are nowhere near as scrupulous in their methods. Bad things start happening to the people Stafford talks to. Soon bad things are happening to him as well. To make matters worse, Stafford's treacherous ex-wife has returned, ostensibly to visit their young son. Stafford suspects there's more to it than that, but even he has no idea how much the visit is about to change all their lives.