Magic City - A Novel

Master of suspense James W. Hall’s Hell’s Bay sends Thorn deep into the wilds of South Florida, in a story with all the haunting atmosphere of Deliverance and the sheer terror of Cape Fear.

Descended from pioneer stock, the Bateses are an aristocratic Floridian family with vast holdings in real estate and mining. When matriarch Abigail Bates is discovered drowned in the Peace River, a chain of events is set into motion, embroiling Thorn with a family he never knew he had and a fortune he doesn’t necessarily want.

Thorn is leading a fishing expedition into the isolated lakes and mangrove swamps of Hell’s Bay when Abigail’s son and beautiful granddaughter arrive, claiming Thorn as a long-lost relative and asking him to solve the woman’s murder. Little do they know that the killer is already on their trail. Soon their houseboat becomes a precarious island of safety in a landscape of escalating violence. What does the killer want? And why is their predator so enraged, determined to kill them all no matter what the cost?

A father’s murder and a son’s ruthless betrayal are at the heart of the new novel by “master of suspense” (Publishers Weekly) James W. Hall

Earl Hammond, the wealthy patriarch of a family of ranchers, lies dead, shot just as he was to donate his Coquina Ranch to the state to preserve it from developers.  Spearheading the plan to save this environmental treasure was Thorn, a reluctant heir to a secret family fortune, who now finds himself in terrible danger as well.  A pair of deviant brothers, both contract killers, kidnaps him and drags him to a game preserve, surrounded by herds of exotic and very dangerous animals.  He is entrapped in a sinkhole—a geological dungeon from which there is no escape.

But Frisco Hammond, the dark sheep of the family, is drawn into the investigation of his father’s murder and Thorn’s disappearance.  He suspects the crimes are related.  Helping him is his brother’s beautiful, troubled wife, Clare.  They uncover a trail that leads back to the 1930’s, to a cabal of powerful and rich men with a sinister plan.

Silencer pits brother against brother and wife against husband in a thriller that proves once again that James Hall is “the king of the Florida-gothic noir” (Dennis Lehane).