The Blackbird Papers (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780767920445)

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Ancient Nine and The Clean 20

A rainy night . . . A stranded motorist . . . A Good Samaritan passerby ... a Nobel Prize-winning professor . . . The setup for a shocking murder designed to cover up an even more sinister crime . . .

The Blackbird Papers marks the debut of Ian Smith, a major new talent in crime fiction, and of Sterling Bledsoe, his smart and occasionally combative sleuth.

World-renowned Dartmouth professor Wilson Bledsoe is returning from a party celebrating his latest honor when he encounters a broken-down pickup on the secluded country road to his home. The next day, the discovery of his body with a vicious racist epithet carved into his chest leads to the quick arrest of two loathsome white supremacists. The local authorities seem ready to accept the case at face value as a racial hate crime. But the murdered professor's brother, FBI agent Sterling Bledsoe, has inserted himself into the investigation and isn't ready to buy into this pat solution. A look around his brother's lab and brief interviews with his students and colleagues pique Sterling's curiosity about Wilson's pet project: a nearly completed paper on the mysterious deaths of hundreds of local blackbirds.

Fast-paced and cleverly constructed, The Blackbird Papers introduces a major new voice in mystery and crime fiction.

Author: Ian Smith
ISBN-10: 0767920449
ISBN-13: 9780767920445
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
Language: English
Published: 06/14/2005
Pages: 336
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.58lbs
Size: 8.22h x 5.44w x 0.80d

Review Citation(s):
Ingram Advance 06/01/2005 pg. 68