Excerpt from Fortune Favors the Dead by Stephen Spotswood , plus links to reviews, author biography & more

She almost smiled again.

"They have their purposes. And they do ... frown on the casual littering of bodies. But I will be with you."

We began the twelve-block walk through dead-of-night New York City, me keeping my pace slow, both to accom modate my new companion and because I was still feeling a little shaky. The buildings seemed taller, the streets narrower. Everything felt higher and darker and more dangerous.

Ms. Pentecost laid a hand on my shoulder. She kept it there most of the way to the station house. For some inexplicable reason, it made me feel better. Like she was passing on a little of whatever had kept her even and calm while staring down the barrel of a gun.

She didn't thank me for saving her life. Come to think of it, she never has. Though it could be argued she paid me back a hundredfold.

It wasn't until years later when somebody suggested I start writing all this down that I was reminded about those invis ible costs. They ended up being higher than I would ever have thought possible. I've never really tallied them up, though. I guess in writing this I'll be forced to. I don't rightly know how the balance sheet will come out. In the red? Or in the black?

From Fortune Favors the Dead: A Novel by Stephen Spotswood, published by Doubleday, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright (c) 2020 by Stephen Spotswood.