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Ebook Details
  • 04/2024
  • 9781963584004 BOCW1F7RH5
  • 330 pages
  • $4.99
Paperback Details
  • 04/2024
  • 9781963584011
  • 333 pages
  • $16.99
Steve Hadden
Author
The Secret That Killed You
Steve Hadden, author
Ike Rossi plunges into a gauntlet of murder, deceit, and danger to uncover a long-forgotten secret that will destroy his client and strike at the heart of the United States of America. Thirty-five-year-old Amelia Garcia, a veteran Air Force drone pilot who’s sacrificed much of her adult life to protect others by doing the unspeakable, has traded her Reaper for a deepwater remotely operated vehicle. It reminds her of flying the Reaper, minus the killing. It’s a job that allows her to escape the barren realities of her life onshore. But when her hobby of collecting lost items from the deep-sea floor uncovers a strongbox two hundred miles off the Virginia coast, people she loves start to die. Unable to rely on her powerful but dysfunctional family, she’s forced to call on the only person who can help her unlock the secret from the deep black sea. Ike Rossi is a hometown sports hero turned investigator who’s haunted by his parents’ unsolved murders. He’s built a reputation for providing clients closure by solving impossible cases despite getting none for himself. After nearly losing his sister while saving a ten-year-old boy charged with murder, he’s promised to never risk his family again. But in Amelia, Ike sees his own suffering and agrees to risk everything to help her. Together, with the help of a World War II codebreaker, they discover that their shocking revelation will re-write history, bring Ike to his knees, and destroy Amelia’s life as she knows it, while throwing the country into violent chaos. Now, Amelia, a patriot with devastating family secrets, must tackle the ghosts of her past and choose between certain death or revealing the one secret that will destroy her and strike at the heart of the country she loves. The Secret That Killed You is a heart wrenching thriller that will have readers glued to the pages late into the night until it reaches its jaw-dropping conclusion.
Reviews
Retired Air Force veteran Amelia Garcia works for her uncle, piloting remotely operated vehicles off the U.S. coast, and pacifies her guilt, left over from previous AF Reaper drone missions, with the refrain that “she had killed for her country to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves.” The job leaves space for small pleasures, like collecting fascinating objects from the ocean floor, but when Amelia retrieves a strongbox emblazoned with a Nazi symbol, she can’t shake the feeling that something’s off. That sense escalates when, after sharing the find with her uncle, he winds up dead the next day, along with his wife and an influential justice department friend.

Hadden’s second Ike Rossi novel (after The Victim of the System) dives headfirst into forgotten history from the Second World War, thoughtfully investigating the price of truth and meditating on what it means to be a contemporary American patriot. Despite her training, Amelia knows this mission is over her head; she seeks out the help of Ike Rossi, a long-ago football star now turned private investigator, to sleuth her artifact’s importance—and uncover who’s willing to kill to get it. Thus ensues a brutal game of keep away, with Amelia and Ike pitted against dark forces that will stop at nothing to keep the enigmatic box’s contents hidden.

Hadden writes with noir flair, though Ike’s compassion, no matter the personal cost, forms him into a much different hero than those pulpy PIs of the past. Amelia holds her own—a fierce warrior sworn to protect her country from all enemies, both foreign and domestic. That resolve is tested at every turn, as Amelia and Ike quickly discover a conspiracy being nurtured by the upper echelons of American politics. Hadden deftly probes the limits of patriotism, leaving readers teetering on a knife edge of right vs. wrong—and eager for more Ike Rossi adventures.

Takeaway: Air Force vet and PI race to solve a dangerous conspiracy.

Comparable Titles: Robin James’s Burden of Proof, Iain King’s Secrets of the Last Nazi.

Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A

Formats
Ebook Details
  • 04/2024
  • 9781963584004 BOCW1F7RH5
  • 330 pages
  • $4.99
Paperback Details
  • 04/2024
  • 9781963584011
  • 333 pages
  • $16.99
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