All the top crime writers agree that Kenneth Abel is a spectacular writer: “A gripper all the way,” says Elmore Leonard. “A stunning achievement,” declares James Lee Burke. “Brilliant,” says Robert B. Parker. And now with Down in the Flood, former New Orleans prosecutor Danny Chaisson is back in a third electrifying thriller. Danny Chaisson's latest case is bid-rigging. But as his investigation proceeds, a gathering storm named Katrina blasts his world apart. Surrounded by death and the destruction of the city he loves, Danny searches for one man who’d trusted Chaisson to guard his identity when he agreed to testify before a federal grand jury investigating corruption in the city’s construction industry. But someone has leaked the identity of this crucial witness, and as the city begins to empty before the approaching storm, Danny learns that a pair of corrupt policemen hired by the wealthy defendants in the case have begun stalking his client. Cut off from escape, and unsure whom he can trust, Chaisson’s client has gone into hiding in the city’s Ninth Ward, where he grew up. Now Danny must race against time, a pair of relentless professional killers, and the rising flood waters to save the man who’d counted on him. But can Danny save one man as a whole city dies?

Down in the Flood

Literature & Fiction

Abel, Kenneth

Contemporary

Minotaur Books

When a troubled engineer sends an anonymous letter to the authorities exposing graft in the construction company that employs him, a process is set in motion that will have predictable consequences: the FBI exerts pressure on the author of the letter, Louis Sams, forcing him to testify before a grand jury. Prosecutor Danny Chiasson does what he can to protect Sams from the inevitable reaction of the power brokers who will want him silenced; but Louis, a conscientious employee, puts himself in unnecessary danger, soon caught in the sights of two ex-policemen who work for a corrupt boss. Graft and corruption are nothing new in New Orleans, but Sams's industry is critical: the materials used to build the levees. Sams can provide evidence of back door deals, cost-cutting and profiteering, the shorting of materials that leads to the catastrophe of city versus hurricane.

Worldwide

After killing mobster Johnny D'Angelo's only son in a drunk-driving accident, narcotics detective Jack Walsh finds himself stripped of his badge and on the run, all the while trying to solve the murder of his partner. 25,000 first printing. $25,000 ad/promo.

Bait

United States

DELACORTE PRESS

His car is dead, his wife has left him, and Detective Dave Moser needs all the friends he can get. Instead, he's about to take on a case that buries him in a morass of corruption and contract murder in the NYPD. Once again Kenneth Abel, author of the acclaimed novel Bait, hurtles us into the gritty, hair-raising world of cops and criminals as Moser finds himself alone, hunting a killer, torn between loyalty and honor, survival and...The Blue Wall. It's not just another floater when Moser and his partner investigate a gorgeous young woman, found dead in the water, missing both eyes. She looked like she came from money with her fancy dental work. No needle tracks. A VIP missing persons report leads Moser to a Park Avenue address and the girl's father, a wealthy Guatemalan with a stone-faced bodyguard and a lot to hide. As Moser and his partner look for leads in the case, a series of unrelated homicides follow-- unrelated until Moser connects the lives of the victims. And when Lt. Tom Richter of the hated Internal Affairs Division tries to persuade him to investigate a fellow cop, it's clear that there's another correlation as well. Moser's on a downhill slide--straight into a federal probe of organized crime that's directly connected to his case. A wiseguy is singing like a canary, implicating Moser's friend as ringleader of a gang of bent cops, connecting him to the murder that haunts Moser's days and nights. And Moser's the man in the middle: suspected as a possible co-conspirator if he doesn't play along with IAD, loathed as a rat if he does. If he wants a future--in or out of the force--he must keep his own counsel, watch his back, and follow a bloody, unmarked trail to its bitter end. Stunning, taut, bristling with suspense, The Blue Wall races to an explosive climax that will echo in memory long after the last page is turned.

Blue Wall, The

In a tense mystery set in New Orleans, Danny Chaisson, an idealistic lawyer who runs errends for a politician on the side to make extra money, becomes the patsy in a power play that may end with him in a body bag. 17,500 first printing.

Cold Steel Rain

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

Putnam Adult

After four white teenagers desecrate an old slave burial ground and racial tensions erupt in violence, Danny Chaisson finds himself on the wrong side of a vicious war over land, power, and memory in a small Louisiana town when he is hired by a rich real estate developer to protect his interest in a valuable piece of property. 10,000 first printing.

The Burying Field

Good cop-turned-drunk cop, Walsh agrees to help federal prosecutor Kate Haggerty get Mafia don Jimmy D'Angelo, who has ordered Walsh's death, and he enters a jungle of corruption, lies, and murder. Reprint.

Dell

The Blue Wall

For Detective Dave Moser, the price of being a cop is getting higher every hour. On a heat-soaked island of violence called Manhattan, a few good cops have gone very bad. Internal Affairs wants Moser to rat. And someone inside the force wants him taken out. In Moser s world, men will do anything to protect their turf.

Robert B. Parker hailed his novel Bait as "brilliant." Now, Kenneth Abel introduces former New Orleans prosecutor Danny Chaisson-and spins a tale of corruption and betrayal that "takes apart crooked Louisiana politics...and makes you care about every last one of the quick and the dead" (Kirkus Reviews).  "A Louisiana saga propelled by dark deeds and the politics of greed...stylishly written...shrewdly plotted." (Los Angeles Times)  "Dark and sometimes bitterly funny." (Chicago Tribune)

Signet

Big Easy lawyer Danny Chaisson is back to settle an emotionally charged dispute between the old South and the new-and finds himself caught in the middle.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Abel, Kenneth. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Abel, Kenneth

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Abel, Kenneth. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Down in the Flood

Down in the Flood

Bait

Blue Wall, The

Cold Steel Rain

The Burying Field

Bait

The Blue Wall

Cold Steel Rain

The Burying Field