All the Dead Were Strangers [Paperback]

With his gut-wrenching brand of suspense, Ethan Black has earned praise from readers and critics alike. Now New York City police detective Conrad Voort returns in his most compelling, complex, and seductive case yet.

After a ten-year separation, Conrad Voort meets his childhood pal Meechum Keefe for drinks in Greenwich Village, and finds him frightened and depressed. Within hours, Meechum disappears -- and the only clue Voort has is a napkin upon which Keefe has scrawled five names. Investigating further, he connects the accidental deaths of three people on the list -- and his instincts tell him that the two left alive are next. As he tries to locate them before it's too late, Voort uncovers a vast conspiracy of death that stretches across the country threatening the very fabric of American life. And the conspirators have discovered Voort.

Locked in a shadow war against enemies who follow their own lethal agenda, Voort is torn between upholding the law and sacrificing everything to stop the killing once and for all....Chapter One

Admit it. You're disappointed, says the dark-haired man across the table. Things didn't turn out the way you planned.

An old friend. A boyhood pal. A best buddy Voort hasn't seen in nine years, drunk enough to talk too much, sober enough to keep secrets. Meechum Keefe smiles at some private thought, some unshared bit of bitter knowledge. He reaches for his third Johnny Walker Red as eagerly as a cardiac patient picking up a nitroglycerin tablet. He downs the liquid as carefully as a diabetic administering his insulin shot.

You said you needed help, Voort prompts. You were afraid to even say the name of this bar, on the phone.

They occupy a rear table in the White Horse Tavern, on Hudson Street, in Greenwich Village, a few short blocks from the Hudson River. The hundred-and-twenty-year-old bar is all dark wood and whirling ceiling fans. The burgers are fat and the beers are dark, coll£_