Playing Dead

The nightmare is over. Alexander “Rotten” Carter is dead. But when his body is dumped in Cleveland Homicide Detective Jesus De La Cruz’s neighborhood, there are more questions than answers. Rotten was dressed up like the king of hearts, right down to the dagger in the suicide king’s temple. The elaborate staging is perplexing at the same time it seems to be sending a message.

As Cruz investigates, he discovers Rotten Carter was more complex than the simple villain he had painted him to be. So is his murder, which is related to the deaths of his two lieutenants months prior. Both were strangled and found, with playing cards in their mouths. Jacks.

As the body count climbs, connection tie back to a dead CI and an accident that made a cop a widower. A web becomes apparent with one man in the middle: Narcotics Detective Matt Yablonski. But is he the spider or another fly?

Critical Acclaim for Books by TG Wolff:

“A fun addition to Wolff's Diamond series. Fast-paced and chock-full of enough hard-boiled humor to make Raymond Chandler jealous. With a chapter title like ‘Naked Man Surfing and Other Odd Hobbies’ and a line like ‘Being dead isn't as much fun as I thought it would be’—how can a reader go wrong?” —Michael Bruce Blackwell, author of Wildlife on the Serengeti, for Psycho Therapy

“Salty, sarcastic, tough as they come, Diamond is a woman you want by your side, not in your rearview mirror. TG Wolff proves she is on top of her game with her latest Diamond Mystery.” —Stephen Burdick, author of Yesterday Rising and The Gray Detective, for Psycho Therapy

“TG Wolff’s novel is for crime-fiction fans who like it action-packed and hard-edged. Written with feisty panache, it introduces Diamond, one of the most aggressive, ill-tempered, and wholly irresistible heroines to ever swagger across the page.” —David Housewright, Edgar Award-winning author of Dead Man’s Mistress, for Widow’s Run

“TG Wolff’s Detective De La Cruz is caught in the crosshairs of solving heinous crimes, defending himself against a wrongful lawsuit, helping an abusive drug dealer’s family, thwarting his mother’s matchmaking, and falling in love. Pit against those who subvert justice and twist the law to suit their own ends, Cruz stands true while suffering his own demons—everything a hero should be. Wolff’s unsentimental and precise writing draws readers. Add Exacting Justice to your ‘to be read’ pile.” —E. B. Davis, mystery author

“Working with an incarcerated population, I deal regularly with people who have made poor life decisions but who can be inherently funny, surprisingly talented, or overly concerned. I know that simple labels of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ don’t work in the real world. In Exacting Justice, TG Wolff created characters just as messy, complicated, and dynamic as real life that keep you wanting to read page after page.” —Vincent Giammarco, Director of Behavioral Health Care