Description

A wealthy diamond dealer is found dead behind a door bolted from the inside, the only key still in his pocket and a single playing card clenched in his fist. Suicide, the police rule—until a sharp-eyed private investigator notices the card and smells murder.

Hired to crack the impossible crime, he plunges into a city where the smuggling trade runs on blood and every suspect carries a flawless alibi. A grieving daughter with no grief. A diamond smuggler with too much to lose. A contract killer who never misses. And somewhere behind them all, a phantom who signs each murder with a card drawn from a deadly deck.

As the bodies stack up and the cards keep falling, the line between hunter and hunted blurs. To name the dealer in this murderous game, Johnny Merak must wager his own life—and pray he isn’t holding a losing hand.