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by Montana Carr (Author)
Falls City is just another dystopian hellscape where dreams go to overdose and hope is just another commodity for sale, and it's where private investigator Marti Starova is barely keeping her head above water. A former detective with a talent for finding the truth and a weakness for Shadow-a potent inhaler drug that numbs the pain of existence-Marti navigates the city's underbelly with cynical expertise and a mouth that gets her into as much trouble as it gets her out of.
When Rat, a twitchy junkie with surprising loyalty, comes to Marti begging her to find LaLoLa, a dealer who's gone missing, she reluctantly takes the case. It should be simple: dealers disappear all the time in Falls City. But nothing is ever simple in this decaying metropolis, especially when the missing person is more than just another pusher.
As Marti digs deeper, with her sharp-tongued assistant Lori providing research and reluctant moral support, she discovers that LaLoLa's disappearance coincides with a wave of overdoses from tainted Shadow. The streets are flooded with a counterfeit version that's killing users at an alarming rate. When Marti herself nearly falls victim to the bad batch, the case becomes personal.
The investigation leads her through a labyrinth of corruption, from sleazy motels to police precincts, forcing Marti to confront her former partner, Detective Damian Kane, whose shadowy dealings suggest he might know more than he's letting on. Their complicated history, hinted at through flashbacks to the Kogoya case-a tragedy that derailed Marti's police career-adds another layer to her already complicated life.
Meanwhile, drug kingpin Dan Devall hires Marti to find out who's manufacturing the counterfeit Shadow bearing his brand name. The assignment puts her in the crosshairs of dirty cops Dunstone and Fehr, who may be running the fake Shadow operation and won't hesitate to eliminate anyone who gets too close to the truth.
As bodies pile up and the lines between victim and perpetrator blur, Marti's investigation becomes a dangerous dance through Falls City's moral wasteland. Her own addiction to Shadow threatens to derail her at every turn, even as she forms unexpected alliances with figures like Ha-Yoon at the morgue and the enigmatic Athena, whose information comes with strings attached.
The city itself becomes a character in this noir narrative-a crumbling, rain-soaked maze of neon-lit desperation where everyone has secrets and no one can be trusted. Marti's personal life is equally chaotic, with a string of complicated relationships including the volatile Pauline, whose own addiction to Golden Shadow leads to a violent confrontation that leaves Marti wounded in more ways than one.
With each clue, the case becomes more twisted, pointing toward a conspiracy that reaches into the highest levels of Falls City's power structure. As Marti closes in on LaLoLa's fate and the source of the deadly counterfeit Shadow, she must confront not only external threats but her own demons. The question becomes not just whether she can solve the case, but whether she can survive the truth it reveals-and what lines she's willing to cross in the name of justice in a city where that concept has long since lost its meaning.
