Ray and Manny, two friends from juvie almost twenty years ago, have a great scam running: with a couple of fake badges and some DEA windbreakers they found at a secondhand store, they target small-time drug dealers, pose as federal agents, confiscate the money and the drugs, and disappear before anyone is the wiser. It's a perfect sting; the dealers are too small to look for revenge, and too guilty to call the police. No one dies, no one innocent ends up a victim, and Ray and Manny score plenty.

But it can't last forever. Eventually they choose the wrong target and end up with hundreds of thousands of dollars; the guy the money belongs to is willing to kill to get it back. Suddenly Ray doesn't care so much about the money; he just wants to get out of this life, this life he feels like he never chose, but was born into. Whether the victim of his latest theft - not to mention his partner - will let him is another question entirely.

Owing debts to writers like Richard Price, James Ellroy and even Dennis Lehane, Dennis Tafoya is a rich, passionate new voice on the crime shelf.

Genre: Mystery