Defense attorney Dean Quinlan’s newest client wants to confess to three murders—and broadcast every word to the world.
When Dean turns the confessions into a wildly successful web series, he becomes an overnight celebrity. But fame comes at a price. The killer is blackmailing him with evidence that makes Dean look guilty of the crimes himself.
If Dean stops airing the confessions, he’ll be arrested for murder. If he keeps going, more people will die.
As a relentless detective closes in and the body count rises, Dean races to expose the truth before he becomes the next victim of the killer’s twisted game. But the confessions are leading somewhere far darker than anyone suspects.
Defense attorney Dean Quinlan’s newest client wants to confess to three murders—and broadcast every word to the world.
When Dean turns the confessions into a wildly successful web series, he becomes an overnight celebrity. But fame comes at a price. The killer is blackmailing him with evidence that makes Dean look guilty of the crimes himself.
If Dean stops airing the confessions, he’ll be arrested for murder. If he keeps going, more people will die.
As a relentless detective closes in and the body count rises, Dean races to expose the truth before he becomes the next victim of the killer’s twisted game. But the confessions are leading somewhere far darker than anyone suspects.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 23rd
West Haven Apartments—Construction Zone 99 Oakdale Lane
North Royalton, Ohio 3:07 a.m.
“This is a bad idea. What the hell am I doing?”
Dean Quinlan whispered that cotton-mouthed mantra over and over, every other step. He swept the darkness with his flashlight, straining to make out shapes in the woods. At three a.m., everything looked like something else. Fingers reaching through the moonlight. Skeletons in the distance. A corpse sprawled across fallen leaves.
All just trees. Black and barren. Tormented by the moaning wind. Not a single thing out of the ordinary. He knew that. But it didn’t stop his hands trembling. Or the thumps in his chest and the echoes in his ears. Cold sweat on the back of his neck.
He’d only been out there a few minutes. Ten, tops. Already felt like an hour. No sense of time anymore. Not since the accident flipped his life upside down. Everything moved in slow-motion now. Or light speed. Nothing in between.
Especially those fucking emails.
For hours,there’d be silence. Sometimes a wholeday. Then it would hit. Each one worse than the last.A ping at two seventeen in the morning this time. Not that he could sleep anyway. Even so, he made sure there was no way to miss it. That triple chime on his phone buzzing on vibrate mode. iPhone glass and steel rattled his night- stand.
Mr. Quinlan,
My compliments on your work. Already the message has spread far and wide. With your continued assistance, I have no doubt that we will soon be heard in all corners.
Tonight, the First Annunciation commences. As Dante wrote:“Soon you will be where your own eyes will see the source and cause and give you their own answer to the mystery.”
To that end: She’s waiting for you.
H.C. Agrippa
A hyperlink below the sign-off connected to his Maps app, pointing to a spot just a few miles from his condo. Some new high-end apartment complex under development. Lots of half-built structures and outlines of streets. Surrounded by forest.
Dean pushed ahead. The wind cut through him. His foot slipped. The torch dropped from his hand. He crouched, cold fingers gripping the shaft, but he didn’t pick it up. First, he took a deep breath. Closed his eyes. The instant he opened them, he saw the reflection.
Close to the ground. Shiny and metallic. Something that didn’t belong in the woods. He aimed the flashlight through the branches. A bracelet maybe. He came to his feet, edged closer. It was jewelry. He saw a foot, then an ankle. A ring of diamonds and silver hanging from a bare leg.
She’s waiting for you.
The air went out of his lungs. Punchedin the gut. Dean forced himself to keep going on the slimmest chance it wasn’t too late. The moment he got near enough, though, he knew. Skin pale, limbs frozen. She was dead. But that wasn’t the worst of it.
He remembered her face. And the moment he killed her.
Nothing would ever be the same.
Dean knew the instant he laid eyes on her. Nearly an hour later and he still couldn’t breathe. Not like normal. Maybe not ever again. Not in the face of this. Pictures were one thing. The guy had already sent a bunch. Those were bad enough. But this was real. A perverse spectacle carved in flesh.
The cops were finally involved, at least. He’d called them once he stopped puking. Damn the exposure. This was too big now, too awful to hide. Even if it meant he was going to prison too.
The first car had pulled up after only three minutes. Local patrol vehicle, black and white. The officer had taken his name, asked him to step away from the body. Then staggered back and threw up.
More first responders followed. There were about a half-dozen cars parked all around the periphery now, high beams flooding the scene. Inside of thirty minutes, the plain clothes guys were circulating, detectives probably. They barked at the uniformed officers, directed them to unspool yellow crime scene tape. None of them said much to him, aside from asking his name and telling him to stay put. No chance he was going anywhere though. Sitting on a stump halfway between a bulldozer and the body, drenched in sweat, he’d maybe given the same information five times. Still couldn’t stop shaking.
Finally, a seventh car arrived. Parked a little off to the side, close to Dean. A distinctive blue four-door, big front end. Hard to tell in the dim, but he guessed the hulking gas-guzzler was maybe a Ford Thunderbird. Vintage early seventies-era. Same as his uncle Ernie used to drive.
It idled for a moment before the headlights lowered and the engine faded down. The driver exited.Big lumbering guy, well over six feet. Probably north of two-fifty.Wore a rumpled black trench coat, Kojak-style center-dent fedora, and a button-down shirt half-tucked over a pot belly.
He slammed the door and went straight to Dean. Reached out a hand, all thick fingers and calloused skin. “Elias Hargrave, Investigator.”
Dean came to his feet to meet the gesture. Force of habit. Never shake anotherman’s hand sitting down, even in the shittiest of moments.
He could tell the guy was a serious customer. Clamping grip and direct eye contact. Bushy mustache that drooped over his jowls. Single gold earring on the left. Unconventional, but Dean had worked in criminal court long enough to know that some eccentricity wasn’t unheard of in a detective. Most of the best ones were a little odd. The job did that to a man.
“You called this in?” Hargrave asked. Deep baritone, two-pack-a day raspy.
Dean cleared his throat. “I did.” He started to introduce himself, stuttering over his own name. He didn’t need to say it.
Hargrave looked him up and down. “You’re that lawyer, aren’t you? Guy who does them internet videos all over the place lately.” Clipped cadence. Dropped R’s. Definitely a New Yorker.
“Counsel’s Corner, yeah.”
“This fella must be a big fan. Sent you his whole fucked up manifesto to play for the masses, eh?” The investigator smiled. “I recognize you. From that headshot, bow tie with the pint glass.”
Dean hated that pic, plastered to the top of every social media platform that featured his content for the last few years. It’d been taken as a joke, the first week he’d signed on to make a few “legal advice for lay people” videos. Was originally supposed to be a limited series. Worst one of the entire shoot in his opinion, but the producers liked it. Said it showed the right blend of self-awareness and whimsy, whatever the fuck that meant. Now it was plastered like an old-time newspaper byline all over the world. He was stuck with it.
“That’s me. Which department are you with again, because I—” Hargrave cut him off. “How bad are we talking here? The victim, I mean?”
Dean shook his head. Not because he didn’t know. He’d never be able to unsee it. “Like I told your colleagues over there, I, uh... I thought I had seen a lot in my day. But this is... something else. Not sure what, to be honest.”
Hargrave squinted, seemed to study the scene from a distance. A smile curled the ends of his mouth. “Seal of Astaroth,eh? Son of a bitch. This fucker’s legit.”
A prickle ran down Dean’s spine. “Excuse me?”
He didn’t stop to explain.Instead, he started toward the center of the crime scene and waved for Dean to follow, heedless of the officers milling about. Only stopped a few yards from the body. Near enough to point to the etchings in the dirt under her.
“Will you look at that, huh? Five-pointed star, four circles and an upside down cross. Triple dots at every point. Couldn’t have done it no better.”
Casual dissection just made the whole thing feel even more obscene. “Which means?”
Hargrave pulled a pack of Lucky Strikes from his coat. Slid one out, snapped open a Zippo, and took a long drag. “Tala foren Astaroth. Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris.”
Dean shook his head. “I’m sorry, what now?”
The big man pointed toward the body itself; a naked woman no more than twenty, splayed out in crucifixion against the base of an oak. Twirled his knobby finger. “From the Ars Goetia. Words of the high seraphim after the fall. What a comfort to the wretched to have companions in misery.”
Dean forced himself to look again. Took him every ounce he had, holding back the vomit urge. Her eyes were empty pits. Tears of blood dripped down her face. The tail end of a snake hung limp from her mouth, stuffed so deep it nearly split her jaw, leaving the tapered point hanging across her bare chest. Even worse, the scaly head protruded from her groin, as if the serpent had slithered down her throat, tunneled through her insides, and emerged from her lower regions.
Hargrave tapped the ash from his cigarette. “Guessing that’s why you’ve got this ball python here. Then came Astaroth in the form of a worm, going upright on his tail.”
Dean lost the battle. Turned away to puke out what remained in his gut. When he came back around, Hargrave was still staring at the girl, either numb to her defilement or fascinated with it. Could’ve even been admiring it. “Excuse me?”
He took a second hit. “Never read The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus?”
Dean wiped his mouth with his sleeve. Squeezed his fists, still trying to tame the jitters. “Not recently.”
Hargrave traced his finger in the air, outlining a picture only he could see. “Gotta know your way around the Lesser Key of Solomon, see. Then it’s pretty damn obvious.”
“For the rest of us, not so much.”
Grinning under floppy whiskers, Hargrave lifted his phone to his ear. “Far as them pictures he sent, I’d say your boy’s done with stage one. Moving on to the first Annunciation.”
Dean jerked his head. How the fuck did he know about that? No one else had read that last message. “Hang on, what did you just say?”
Hargrave’s smile dissolved. “Buckle up. Only gets worse from here.”
Dean started to answer. But Hargrave waved him off, apparently reaching someone on the other end of the call. “Sorry, afraid this can’t wait.”
As he stepped aside, Dean looked back. The symbols in the dirt.
The twisted pose. Revulsion and curiosity in equal measure.
He didn’t get far. Another detective blocked him. Hand planted in the middle of his chest stopped him cold. “You’ve got to stay back, sir. This is an active scene. They should’ve told you that.”
Dean lifted his hands in surrender. “Sorry, Detective—”
“Garrison.”
“I was just following your colleague’s lead.”
“Who’s that?”
He gestured over his shoulder. Hargrave was already gone. The Ford’s headlights flashed as the car backed out. “Right there, the detective in the old-time Thunderbird.”
The cop narrowed his eyes. “What did he say his name was?”
“First name’s Elias, I think. Elias Hargrave. Pretty sure he said he was an investigator. I just assumed—”
Garrison pushed Dean to the side, waving toward the vehicle. But it was already spun around and driving off.
The detective came back toward him. “Hargrave, you say?”
Dean could already tell what his side-eye look meant. “Wait a second. Are you telling me he isn’t with you?”
Detective Garrison shook his head. “I don’t know who you were talking to or who the hell’s in that car, but there’s no one by that name who works for this department.”
Thank you Frank Cavallo and Reedsy for an advanced copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. I came across the author’s writing through his previous work, The King and the Pallid Mask, which was an excellent blend of occult mysticism and mystery that kept me hooked from the first page all the way to the end. In this novel, this genre blend is prevalent again, expertly intermix legal thriller with the occult again, creating a truly unsettling setting that is prevalent throughout. The noir-ish narrative with its cold Cleveland setting truly reminds me of the slow-paced narrative of True Detective, where the readers are taken for a step-by-step guide in uncovering the motivation of our killer - and Frank sells the twist so well! With our protagonist Dean Quinlan, a lawyer and host of a popular video channel, we understand the stakes from the start and feel the conflict that he experiences throughout the novel - and this is exactly what makes it such a gripping read. What the author does so well, between both of our protagonists is that he manages to write these complex antihero types, and making us both invest and loathe them in equal measure. With PI, Elias Hargrave, who is our secondary POV character in this novel, there is this palpable tension along the morality spectrum that creates a high stakes cat-and-mouse dynamic with law enforcement that challenges our belief in the goodness of these characters.
We are left in this state of dread that is constantly heightened with every video from Agrippa, and the author does not relent in his depiction of the horrors that are inflicted upon the victims of this novel. This is heightened through the parallel timelines of the Quinlan and Hargrave narratives where we see both men almost going against the clock to uncover this larger mystery afoot in the hopes of figuring out Agrippa’s end goal and saving themselves from it. When the twist finally lands, it threw me off in that we are seeing this mystery in a 4D chess game where every person involved has their own vested interest in the outcome, and it genuinely blew my mind. Just because of this, I cannot recommend this novel enough. Truly a work to be devoured by fans of occult murder mysteries.