Set in the oil bust days of late 1980s Texas, Michael Simon’s explosive debut, Dirty Sally , introduced readers to Detective Dan Reles, Austin Homicide’s only New Yorker and its only Jew. In Body Scissors , a brand-new decade brings a new criminal web of intrigue and violence for Dan to untangle. It’s January 1991, and as America watches the bombs drop on Iraq at the start of Desert Storm, a botched assassination attempt on Virginia Key, a rising black community leader, captures the attention of the local press. With one of Key’s children in a coma and the other dead, Dan is eager to investigate. That is, until department politics bump him off the case. Meanwhile, several affluent white college kids fall comatose and doctors are frantic to find an explanation. As a bizarre chain of events puts Dan on the trail of a psychotic drug dealer with a broad network of influence and a hit list (featuring Dan’s name prominently), Dan is certain he can catch the dealer and break the case wide open—unless the dealer gets to Dan first. A violent and thrilling adventure ride, Body Scissors confirms Michael Simon as the next big talent in hard-boiled crime fiction.