Standalone: A Dickie Cornish Mystery

In the second book of the Dickie Cornish mystery series, an unlicensed private investigator is forced to track down the daughter of an ex-con, leading to a war within the corrupt police force and a secret that threatens to tear the nation's capital apart.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 336 pages
Publication date: 11 November 2022
Publisher: Three Rooms Press

“Chambers makes the smell and harrowing vibe of the mean streets of the nations capital come alive.” —Publishers Weekly Dickie Cornish, a Washington, DC street denizen turned unlicensed private investigator, is forced at gunpoint to track down the daughter of an ex-con, setting up a chain of events that unleashes a war within the corrupt police force, exposes shocking conduct in child services, and unearths a secret that threatens to tear the nation's capital apart. The second book in the Dickie Cornish mystery series, STANDALONE, is a must-read for fans of S. A. Cosby, George Pelecanos, and Joe Ide. It's been over a year since that bleak Christmas when a rich man peeled homeless, drug-addled Dickie Cornish from a steam grate, cleaned him up, and convinced him to use his street connections to track down his missing property. Now, as the summer sun bakes those same mean streets, the air is thick with crime, contagion, corruption. Dickie struggles with sobriety, anti-psychotic meds, and counseling at the VA, but manages to make a meager living as a private investigator with his sidekick, "Stripe"—until an ex-con named Al-Mayadeen Thomas sticks a gun to Dickie's forehead and kidnaps him to a grim flophouse—a motel filled with squatters more desperate than the poor souls in the shelters. Thomas demands that Dickie find his daughter, missing for years from the motel in a notorious cold case. The other squatters plead for him to find their vanished children as well. Thomas takes his own life to seal Dickie's help, Police Chief Linda Figgis hauls Dickie in, gives him a Faustian choice: she directs him to help her close the Thomas cold case, but only if he forgets about the other vanished and abused children. To his horror, Dickie discovers that the Thomas case is just the tip of the iceberg, and that a much larger and more sinister conspiracy is at play, one that threatens to destroy the city and its inhabitants. With the help of his new allies, Dickie must race against time to uncover the truth and bring the culprits to justice before it's too late. STANDALONE is a thrilling and suspenseful novel that will keep readers on the edge of their seats until the very end. It is a must-read for fans of mystery, crime, and political intrigue, and will leave them eagerly anticipating the next installment in the Dickie Cornish series.”

Dimension: 209 x 139 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781953103239