The Guise of Another

by Allen Eskens

Overview

Who was James Putnam? Answering that question may mean salvation for Alexander Rupert, a Minnesota detective whose life is in a serious downward spiral. A Medal of Valor winner, Alexander is now under subpoena by a grand jury on suspicion of corruption. He’s been reassigned to the Frauds Unit, where he is shunned by his fellow detectives, and he fears his status-seeking wife may be having an affair. When he happens across a complex case of identity theft, Alexander sees an opportunity to rehabilitate his tattered reputation. But the case explodes into far more than he could have expected, putting him in the path of trained assassin Drago Basta, a veteran of the Balkan wars who has been searching for “James Putnam” for years. As his life spins out of control, Alexander’s last hope may be his older brother, Max, a fellow police detective who steps in to try to save his brother from the carnage his investigation has let loose.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781633880764
Publisher:	Seventh Street Books
Publication date:	10/06/2015
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	130,830
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Allen Eskens is the award-winning and USA Today–bestselling author of The Life We Bury, The Guise of Another, and The Heavens May Fall. A criminal-defense attorney for twenty-five years, he lives with his wife in Minnesota, where he is a member of the Twin Cities Sisters in Crime.

Editorial Reviews

Eskens's elegant but chilly prose, like winter in the blood, is well suited to this fiercely told morality tale…which is sure to send all of us wretched sinners straight to hell.

The New York Times Book Review - Marilyn Stasio

★ 08/10/2015
Edgar-finalist Eskens follows his highly praised debut, The Life We Bury (2014), with an equally compelling second novel starring Alexander Rupert, a disgraced Minneapolis police detective. Toiling away in the fraud unit while a grand jury investigates charges that he stole drug money, Rupert happens upon a case that he believes could return him to the department’s good graces: a man who faked his death 15 years earlier in a boat accident off Coney Island has just died for real in a Minnesota car crash. Rupert wants to know who James Putnam really was and why he staged the coverup. While his own life continues to spiral toward the drain, Rupert finds himself increasingly attracted to Putnam’s former live-in girlfriend, a temptress with elusive motivations. Eskens moves his plot along in a spare, sure-handed manner, avoiding clichés and stock situations. Elevating the story further are several unexpected turns down the homestretch, as well as several well-crafted characters who serve as examples of how good people can succumb to weakness. Readers looking for a new voice should pay attention to Eskens. Agent: Amy Cloughley, Kimberley Cameron Agency. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

2015-07-16
A freak accident provides a detective the chance to redeem his good name. The speeding car of a thrill-seeking couple jumps a median in late-night Minneapolis and kills a man in another lane. His license identifies him as James Putnam. But Detective Alexander Rupert, who's lately been transferred to the Forgery and Frauds Unit from the scandal-ridden Joint Drug Enforcement Task Force, finds out from an ambulance chaser that the dead man is actually someone else. Alexander eagerly takes on the case of identity theft as a chance to salvage a career that's under federal investigation. When the dead man's sexy live-in girlfriend, Ianna Markova, lets Alexander see his hard drive, the detective finds records of a tidy fortune and 10 annual deposits of $10,000 each. Alexander's big brother, Max, a homicide detective to whom he's close, pulls strings to get him sent to New York to track down Putnam's real identity. With the help of a feisty detective who might be a good match for the widowed Max, Alexander discovers that in 2001, the imposter, Jericho Pope, was supposedly killed in a boating accident. Instead, he swam to shore, went into hiding, took his roommate Putnam's identity, and started blackmailing the men who tried to kill him. He put certain incriminating videos on a flash drive Alexander wants so he can break the case and offset his former partner's testimony against him, his looming grand jury appearance, his wife's coolness, and even Max's growing doubts. Meantime, a hired gun without a human heart wants the drive too and is targeting everyone who gets in his way. As the bodies pile up, Alexander makes a desperate move that may be his only way out. Eskens (The Life We Bury, 2014) has upped the pace and the stakes in his second novel but with less success. His instincts are best when he focuses on the floundering Alexander and the brother who acts as his conscience.

Kirkus Reviews

"It's a taut, intelligent,heart-ripping story that explores the darkest places in the human psyche." ---William Kent Krueger, author of Iron Lake

From the Publisher