Lucifer's Promise

Thompson’s new blockbuster is equal parts legal thriller, medical ethics conundrum and old-fashioned murder mystery. Decades after Harry and Alex Monmouth made their debuts in Thompson’s previous novel, Gods and Lesser Men (2014, etc.), they’re once again caught up in controversy and conspiracy. Harry’s hometown of New Hope is in the midst of football fever as a new quarterback shatters records and promises great things for the college’s future. But there are troubling rumors about the team’s academic performance, and the dean calls on Harry to investigate. At the same time, Alex is losing her battle with leukemia . . . Harry soon meets Dr. Franklin Steiner and realizes there might just be a miracle in store for his wife. But at a price he may not be prepared to pay. Meanwhile, when the people who’ve helped him with the football case start turning up dead, he realizes that New Hope conceals more mysteries than he’d bargained for . . . Fortunately, while Harry tries to understand how these people and cases are connected, the novel’s prose is startlingly detailed, allowing readers to understand the disparate realms of genetics and college athletics while also painting a vibrant picture of the town and college . . . A complex, thought-provoking story that defies genre conventions to remind us of difficult questions and tangled answers.