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"Fascinating police procedural"

Nineteen years old Jace Damon has learned to keep a low profile for fear that children's protective services would take his eight-year-old brother Tyler away from him. He works as a bicycle messenger in Los Angeles, being paid off the books and living in Chinatown where the community closes ranks around them.

One rainy night, Jace picks up a package from slimy lawyer Lenny Lowell. When he reaches the address of the place he is supposed to leave the package at, he finds an empty lot. Someone tries to grab the package and Jace knows he has to get away before the thug grabs the parcel and kills him. When he returns to Lenny, he sees the cops there and learns that his client was murdered. When he opens the package, he sees negatives. Jace figures that Lenny was blackmailing someone. Not wanting to bring trouble to his brother or Madame Chan who has unofficially adopted them, he leaves but homicide detective Ken Parker and robbery- homicide detective Brandon Kyle is looking for him as well as the man who wants to kill him for what he knows.

KILL THE MESSENGER is a fascinating police procedural that readers will enjoy immensely because the quirky characters make this book very special. Jace is more mature than people twice his age are; his brother is a genius; and the lead police officer on the case Detective Parker is a maverick who does not always follow directions but manages to get the job done. Tami Hoag is one author the audience one can count on for getting the job done too as she writes juicy, entertaining and original novels.

Harriet Klausner

With this new thriller, New York Times bestselling author Tami Hoag delivers her own message to suspense fans everywhere: Don't turn off the lights, and keep reading if you dare. From the gritty streets of Los Angeles to its most protected enclaves of prestige and power to the ruthless glamour of Hollywood, a killer stalks his prey. A killer so merciless no one in his way is safe--not even the innocent.

At the end of a long day battling street traffic, bike messenger Jace Damon has one last drop to make. But en route to delivering a package for one of L.A.'s sleaziest defense attorneys, he's nearly run down by a car, chased through back alleys, and shot at. Only the instincts acquired while growing up on the streets of L.A. allow him to escape with his life--and with the package someone wants badly enough to kill for.

Jace returns to Lenny Lowell's office only to find the cops there, the lawyer dead, and Jace himself considered the prime suspect in the savage murder. Suddenly he's on the run from both the cops and a killer, and the key to saving himself and his ten-year-old brother is the envelope he still has--which holds a message no one wants delivered: the truth.

In a city fueled by money, celebrity, and sensationalism, the murder of a bottom-feeding mouthpiece like Lenny Lowell won't make the headlines. So when detectives from the LAPD's elite robbery/homicide division show up, homicide detective Kev Parker wants to know why. Parker is on the downhill slide of a once-promising career, and he doesn't want to be reminded that he used to be one of the hotshots, working cases that made instant celebrities of everyone involved. Like the case of fading retty-boy actor Rob Cole, accused of the brutal murder of his wife, Tricia Crowne-Cole, daughter of one of the most powerful men in the city, L.A.'s latest "crime of the century."

Robbery/Homicide has no reason to be looking at a dead small-time scumbag lawyer or chasing a bike messenger...unless there's something in it for them. Maybe Lenny Lowell had a connection to something big enough to be killed for. Parker begins a search for answers that will lead him to a killer--or the end of his career. Because if there's one lesson he's learned over the years, it's that in a town built on fantasy and fame, delivering the truth can be deadly.