The Setup - (Head Cases) by John McMahon (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

John McMahon's electrifying series continues as Gardner Camden and the PAR team investigate the suspicious death of an FBI agent.

When decorated FBI agent Kevin Winslow is found dead in a Mobile, Alabama hotel room--a needle in his lap, the deadbolt thrown from the inside--the case is closed before it opens. Another burned-out federal employee who couldn't hold it together.

But Gardner Camden and the team at PAR don't close cases. They read them. Detail by detail. And these details don't add up.

The pattern-obsessed leader of PAR- the FBI's elite analytical unit- notices what everyone else has already decided not to notice about the dead agent. No track marks. Eleven commendations in four years. And a wife who swears her husband couldn't take an aspirin.

On a trip to Winslow's hometown, Gardner has his answer: the dead agent had a rare allergy to opioids. One drop would have killed him. Which means Winslow wasn't a closet drug addict; someone murdered him.

Gardner and the PAR team is pulled from the backwater swamps of Alabama to the back corridors of Washington- where three FISA court judges have died in suspicious accidents, a Chinese intelligence operation has quietly burrowed into the architecture of American surveillance, and the truth about the FBI agent's death reaches all the way back to the desk of FBI director Craig Poulton himself, the team's longtime nemesis.

And nobody's innocent.

Everyone knows Poulton will do anything to get ahead. The question is- how far back do his crimes go? And are Gardner and PAR willing to find out?

About the Author

JOHN McMAHON'S debut novel The Good Detective was labeled "pretty much perfect" by the New York Times, which listed it among their "Top Ten Crime Novels of 2019." The book was also a finalist for the 2020 Edgar Award and the ITW Thriller Award, both for Best First Novel. Head Cases is his fourth novel, and is currently in development with Warner Bros TV for a streaming series on HBO Max. John currently lives in Southern California with his wife, two kids, and a rescue dog. He splits his time between crime-writing and his day job in advertising.