In Wolves’ Clothing
Greg Levin
Publication date: October 11th 2017
Genres: Adult, Psychological Thriller
Zero Slade is not a bad guy—he merely plays one when saving children’s lives.
During his seven years on a team fighting child sex trafficking, Zero’s become quite good at schmoozing with pimps, getting handcuffed by cops and pretending not to care about the Lost Girls he liberates. But the dangerous sting operations are starting to take their toll on his marriage and sanity. His affinity for prescription painkillers isn’t exactly helping matters.
When the youngest girl the team has ever rescued gets abducted from a safe house in Cambodia, Zero decides to risk everything to find her. His only shot is to go rogue—and sink deeper into the bowels of the trafficking world than he’s ever sunk.
It’s the biggest mission of his life. Trouble is, it’s almost certain death.
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“A truly original and enthralling novel. Levin’s blazing prose and acerbic wit capture the madness—and the humanity—of working undercover in the darkest corners.”
Radd Berrett, former Jump Team member, Operation Underground Railroad
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EXCERPT:
I can’t remember if I took an oxy during the flight, so I eat two. They pair nicely with the scotch.It’s good to be home.
I should be upstairs sleeping, especially since I didn’t catch a single wink on the flight from Guadalajara. But there’s something I have to finish first.
An eight-letter word for gradually losing one’s edge.
Slipping.
I fill in each box of 27 Down with my black pen and take another sip of scotch. It’s times like these I turn into God. The crossword squares fill up by themselves in a secret blurry code. A few of the answers might even be correct.
The black pleather couch makes love to me as I solve 32 Across.
A four-letter word for spouse.
Neda.
She’s leaning on the banister, wearing a white T-shirt and gray sweatpants that might have fit me when I was ten. Her eyes, almond-shaped during waking hours, are half open.
“You’re home?” she says, pre-dawn gravel in her voice.
“Hi, baby,” I say while trying to conceal the nearly empty lowball glass in my hand. “Sorry to wake you. I’ll be up in a sec.”
Neda yawns and combs her hand through a shining cascade of black hair. “What time d’you get in?”
I scratch my shaved dome, feeling the perspiration forming, and say, “Uh, a little after one maybe.”
Neda opens her eyes the rest of the way. “You’ve been here for nearly two hours? Why didn’t—”
“Baby, I just needed to unwind a bit before bed.”
Neda’s eyes open wider than the manual recommends. “Why must unwinding always involve single malt and a crossword?” she asks. “You know, some men unwind by spooning their beautiful wife. Especially when they haven’t seen her in four days.”
I ponder the answer to 36 Across.
“Zero!” Neda shouts.
The sound knocks the pen from my fingers, and I go, “I didn’t want to wake you.”
“And look how that worked out for you,” says Neda. “At least if you’d come up when you got home you wouldn’t be getting yelled at.”
I tell her not to be mad, then get up from the couch as gracefully as a man two drinks and twenty milligrams in can. “I knew if I woke you right when I got home, you’d want to talk about the mission.”
I realize this is not what God would say. I can tell by Neda’s face.
Author Bio:
Greg Levin is an award-winning author of contemporary fiction with a dark comedic tinge. He’s gone from being read merely by immediate family and friends to being read also by extended family and Facebook acquaintances.
Greg’s novel The Exit Man was optioned by Showtime for development into a TV series, and won a 2015 Independent Publisher Book Award (a.k.a., an “IPPY”). He earned a second IPPY with his next novel, Sick to Death, which Craig Clevenger (The Contortionist’s Handbook) called “a tour de force dark comedy.” Greg’s upcoming book, In Wolves’ Clothing, is due out October 2017 and is his most dangerous work yet. He wrote much of it during a ten-week-long workshop led by the great Chuck Palahniuk (author of Fight Club and lots of other books Greg sleeps with at night).
Greg resides with his wife, daughter and two cats in Austin, Texas. He is currently wanted by local authorities for refusing to say “y’all” or do the two-step.
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