The Big Hit

In Harvey’s first new thriller in more than fifteen years, a starlet’s murder draws an NYPD detective into a cross-country manhunt

Mongo wakes up, brushes his teeth, and prepares to kill a movie star. He needs a wig and a phony press pass, as well as a very special tape recorder that holds two fléchettes, one of which is earmarked for screen siren Catherine Delure. A bit of smooth talk takes Mongo past Delure’s security and into her hotel room, where he completes his assignment with ease. The hit was simple, he thinks. But it is about to go terribly wrong.

Delure appears to have been shot during a robbery, but homicide detective Jeb Barker is not fooled. Tracking the self-assured assassin leads the PI first to Las Vegas, then to California—where blue sky and palm trees cannot distract him from the darkness within the hit man’s heart.

James Neal Harvey spent fifteen years in the advertising business before selling his company and devoting himself to writing. He made his hardcover debut in 1990 with By Reason of Insanity, which introduced NYPD detective Ben Tolliver.

Harvey followed Tolliver through four more novels, including Painted Ladies, Mental Case, and the concluding thriller, Dead Game. In 2011, Harvey published the nonfiction Sharks of the Air, a detailed history of the development of the first jet fighter, and in 2014, he returned to thrillers with The Big Hit, a mystery about an assassin.