Bait - A Harper Jones Novel

In Jeffrey Butler's relentless thriller Bait, Detective Harper Jones of Wolf Hollow, North Carolina, hunts a car bomber when the ghosts of his past as a black-ops soldier come calling. Ten years ago, a mission to eliminate a Corsican arms dealer ended in disaster, leaving Harper believing his teammate and lover Josie was dead. Now, a vengeful crime syndicate, the mysterious Rosanera, has targeted Harper and his family, delivering a severed pig’s head as a warning and shooting his partner, Mary Lou. When Harper discovers Josie is alive, imprisoned, tortured, and mother to his daughter, he must abandon his badge and join forces with Finn, the guilt-ridden sniper who once left her for dead, for a desperate rescue mission at a remote Albanian monastery. But with the clock ticking, a presidential assassination plot in motion, and his own daughter trained as a child soldier, Harper faces an impossible choice: save the woman he loves or protect the family he never knew he had.

Jeffrey Butler crafts a world where the sun-drenched beaches and tourist boardwalks of Wolf Hollow offer the perfect backdrop for the investigation. And there is also the shadowy limestone medieval fortress turned into a human trafficking hub. Harper is a compellingly flawed hero—equally adept at interrogating slippery mobsters like Little Frankie Manetti as he is at scaling seven-hundred-foot cliffs with a BASE parachute. The supporting cast shines with moral shades: Finn struggles with alcoholism and a decade-old secret, while the villain operates with chilling precision from her cliffside stronghold. Bait explores the devastating price of loyalty and the possibility of redemption. The novel asks whether a man can outrun his past when it takes the form of a nine-year-old girl holding an AK-47, and whether forgiveness can exist between two soldiers bound by a single bullet that both destroyed and saved a life. Taut, visceral, and emotionally resonant, this is crime fiction with a memorable hero who is delightful to watch in everything he does.