The Viper: A Dave Gurney Novel

Tennis bad boy Zeke Slade is serving twenty years to life for the murder of small-time criminal Lenny Lerman. The facts of the case--and Slade's checkered past--seem indisputable. Why then is Dave Gurney being asked to come out of retirement to reinvestigate the matter by his wife's friend? And why is Madeleine, usually agnostic about her husband's freelance police work, so insistent that Gurney take on the case? Something's not adding up. What is clear is that there's more afoot than anybody is letting on, and that includes the ruthless district attorney, who has it out for Gurney.

Revelation leads to revelation in classic edge-of-your-seat Verdon fashion, and soon Gurney finds himself the prime suspect in a murder as he matches wits with a killer animated by motives crueler than anything Gurney has encountered before. The Favor finds Gurney putting everything--personal and professional--on the line to solve the case, and the shocking conclusion will call into question his obsession with police work and whether it's costing him more than even this brilliant detective ever suspected.