The Last Descent

A murder at the Grand Canyon throws travel writer and amateur sleuth Jacob Smalls (“An ideal guide for journeying into unknown territories.”—Christopher Fowler) into a mob conspiracy of epic proportions.
 
Not only has Jacob Smalls just been dumped, his now-ex-girlfriend, fellow travel writer Jewel Rider, has wasted no time moving on. But when she cozies up to the PR man for a newly erected luxury hotel near the Grand Canyon, Jacob thinks he knows what Jewel’s really after: the inside scoop on the hotel’s owner, Gus Greenbaum, a gangster who built his desert oasis on bribery and intimidation. So after Jewel plunges to her death while hiking the canyon, Jacob isn’t ready to believe it was an accident.
 
As an excuse to do some snooping, Jacob joins a press trip to Gus’s hotel. Notes hidden deep inside Jewel’s backpack reveal that she may have had more dirt on Gus than she realized, and as Jacob follows her leads, he inches closer to the truth. But Gus is onto him too. One of his thugs seems to be watching Jacob’s every move. And now Jacob will need to use every trick in the book before he’s wiped off the map.
 
Praise for The Travel Writer
 
“Travel doesn’t just broaden the mind; it can also get you killed. Sassy, cynical Jacob Smalls is an ideal guide for journeying into unknown territories.”—Christopher Fowler, author of the Peculiar Crimes Unit series