Breakfall - by Zhanna Slor (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

One wrong decision. One death. One missing person. One clear suspect.

Mina Banksy has enough on her plate. Between surviving a tumultuous divorce, managing her writing career, and raising a difficult toddler, the last thing she needs is for the police to show up at her door, looking for a missing person from her former Jiu Jitsu gym.

Dylan, an ex-addict and convicted felon, has tried to move on from his criminal life, finding a home and friends in the close-knit gym. His disappearance triggers a series of events that turns all the gym-goers into either a suspect or a potential victim.

Meanwhile, Dylan's disappearance forces Mina to confront her past. She's tried to outrun the demons that haunt her, but now it's time to face the real reason she left the gym in the first place ...

Part unconventional romance and part murder mystery, set inside the eclectic subculture of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Breakfall will have you up all night turning the pages until the electric end.

About the Author

Zhanna Slor was born in Ukraine and moved to the Midwest in the early 1990s. Her debut novel, At the End of the World, Turn Left, was called "elegant and authentic" by NPR and named by Booklist as one of the "Top Ten Crime Debuts" of 2021. Her second novel, Breakfall, a domestic thriller surrounding a mysterious death at a close-knit Jiu Jitsu gym, was released in 2023. She currently lives in Milwaukee and works as a TV critic and staff writer for TV Guide.