A Smith & Wesson with a Side of Chorizo — Andrew Welsh-Huggins

Ohio prisons investigator Lt. LaShondra Qualls and State Highway Patrol Det. Karl Heintz are stumped. Why would inmate Daniel O'Connor, with a clean behavior record inside and one week left before release, escape from his work camp detail and go on the lam? What would motivate him to throw everything away and face many more years behind bars? As the two begin piecing together O'Connor's story and disappearance, O'Connor is on a bus headed to Chicago. With him, not by choice, is Nancy Richter, a woman who befriended him in prison, first as a pen pal, then as a visitor, and then as the supplier of his getaway car and a ticket out of Ohio. O'Connor is on a mission, to settle a score from deep in his past, and Nancy can only complicate matters. Unbeknownst to O'Connor, even as he draws closer to his quarry, a young man named Edgerton is preparing to settle a score of his own. But his stems from rage against society, especially women, and it will involve the death of innocents. As O'Connor and Edgerton's paths begin to merge, Qualls and Heintz discover the secret driving O'Connor to seek justice and scramble to stop the escaped inmate before it's too late. Praise for A SMITH & WESSON WITH A SIDE OF CHORIZO: This taut movable feast of rich characters and compelling action score big. This is a revenge story you can really sink your teeth into, and Welsh-Huggins blows it out of the water adding the gritty streets of Chicago and a psychopathic wing-woman you'll find hard to shake. Buckle up and enjoy. Believe me, you'll never look at a taco truck the same way. —Tracy Clarke, author of Borrowed Time, winner of the 2020 Sue Grafton Memorial Award