Racing to save a friend’s daughter from a threatening marriage, Joe Crow finds himself caught in the middle of a conflict between the would-be groom and a murderous cult as he faces cultists, carnies, and cocaine dealers.

Poker-playing ex-cop Joe Crow has been dealt some rotten hands in his life, but he’s been lucky enough to survive them all. But when Axel Speeter starts begging for help to save his girlfriend’s daughter, Carmen, from a dangerous marriage, Crow suspects his luck is about to run out.

Carmen has just gotten engaged to Hyatt Hilton, a onetime drug pusher who sells bootlegged Evian to pay his bills. When Speeter asks Crow to make sure Hilton is on the straight and narrow, it becomes evident that he is involved in something much more dangerous than fake designer water.

As Hilton is dangerously close to becoming a member of a New Age cult convinced of having found the secret to immortality and not scared of killing to prove it, Crow finds himself in the middle of a dangerous fight as he struggles to bring Carmen to safety.

Pete Hautman is the author of National Book Award-winning novel Godless, Sweetblood, Hole in the Sky, Stone Cold, The Flinkwater Factor, The Forgetting Machine, and Mr. Was, which was nominated for an Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America, as well as several adult novels. He lives in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Visit him at PeteHautman.com.