The 8th Circle

November 9, 2015
Newspaper columnist Danny Ryan, the hero of Cain’s intricately plotted first novel, has been unable to work in the year since his wife, Beth, and their preteen son died in a car accident. One stormy night, Michael Cohen, a close friend of Danny’s, drives his car into a shallow pond on Danny’s property outside Philadelphia. Danny rushes outside. The dying Michael, who has a bullet wound in his gut, utters one word before expiring: inferno. What was Michael trying to tell him, Danny wonders, and why was he killed? In pursuit of the answers, Danny takes on crooked police, shady politicians (including Beth’s father, Senator Robert Harlan), and Philly’s foremost philanthropists—all at his own peril. Meanwhile, he comes to question the cause of his wife’s accident and the resolution of the serial killer case he covered that won him a Pulitzer Prize. How Danny discovers the truth and whether it will corrupt him makes for exciting reading. Agent: Renee C. Fountain, Gandolfo Helin Literary Management.