In Peter Blauner’s Edgar Award–winning first novel, a New York probation officer locks horns with a deadly young drug dealer

As a probation officer in a city plagued by drugs, murders, and corruption, Steven Baum supervises marginal criminals—not dangerous enough for prison, but too damaged to go totally free. He watches them, keeps them in line, and once in a long while, helps one improve his life. The job is a vicious grind, but Steven is good at it, and he is about to be rewarded with a transfer to active duty. But first he has to deal with Darryl King.

A small-time dealer with big aspirations, Darryl is the kind of thug who makes probation officers want to quit. Although the boy terrifies him, Steven holds out hope for helping him turn his life around. What he doesn’t know is that Darryl is a cop-killer—and his troubles have only just begun.

Peter Blauner (b. 1959) has spent nearly his entire life in New York City. After graduating from Wesleyan University he took a staff job at New York Magazine, where he found the inspiration for his first book, the Edgar Award–winning Slow Motion Riot, in the men and women who work in the city’s probation department. Since then, he has written five more novels: Casino Moon, the New York Times bestseller The Intruder, Man of the Hour, The Last Good Day, and 2006’s Slipping Into Darkness.