Blackbird

A Novel

An “electrifying debut” crime novel of a young girl’s strange and savage upbringing as an assassin’s apprentice— “Satisfying and original” (Publishers Weekly).

A cold-blooded killer-for-hire, Edison North drifts across America from city to city, crime scene to crime scene, leaving behind a world in flames. But during a seemingly random stop at a fast food restaurant, Edison meets Christian, a young girl who mirrors his own sense of isolation and stink of “other.” Though it’s been a long time since he felt anything resembling a human connection, something about this eight-year-old child calls to him like a fallen nestling. Edison feels certain she deserves better. And while he is not convinced he can give her that, he can teach her to fly on her own. So he takes her.

Thus begin the chronicles of Edison North and his protégé. Weaving together past and present, Edison begins Christian’s strange apprenticeship as she, years later, looks back on the fractured upbringing that made her into the killer she’s become. What emerges is “a caustic crime thriller with a daringly pitch black sense of humor, and a literary examination of alienation in the age of terror and conspiracy” (Jeremy Robert Johnson, author of Skullcrack City).