Hardscrabble Road A Gregor Demarkian Novel

"When local Philadelphia radio host Drew Harrigan, known for his incendiary right-wing tirades, is arrested for illegal possession of prescription drugs, he implicates a homeless man in the drug buys and disappears into a locked rehabilitation facility. While Harrigan is away, beyond the reach of the media and the court, the homeless man so implicated, Sherman Markey, first sues Harrigan for defamation and false accusation and then he himself disappears. With Markey's court date coming up, a member for a legal advocacy group representing him approaches Gregor Demarkian for help in locating him." Demarkian, a retired FBI agent, thinking it will be a simple matter of making a few phone calls, soon finds himself in the midst of a complex maze of motives and actors. Almost as many people have reason for wanting Markey to disappear as do those who want him found. Among those are the Reverend Mother of a local Benedictine monastery, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist and noted leftist academic, the lawyer representing Harrigan and an organization for the homeless, among others. When a body wearing clothes matching the description of those of the missing Sherman Markey is found, Demarkian realizes that someone is out to silence Markey - and may have already succeeded - and now he has to unravel a most complicated puzzle before the killer strikes again.Haddam, Jane is the author of 'Hardscrabble Road A Gregor Demarkian Novel', published 2006 under ISBN 9780312353735 and ISBN 0312353731.