A Shadow in the City Confessions of an Undercover Drug Warrior [Paperback]

Joey O'Shay is a cop with a genius for the drug bust. But after more than two decades undercover, he's no longer so certain who the heroes of the drug war are, or what the fight is for. Still, he never feels so alive as when he's doing a deal. So this time he sets out to test himself against the elite of the drug business, the Colombians and their fine, pure heroin. Maybe he'll finally meet his match.

Charles Bowden, author of the critically acclaimed Down by the River, follows O'Shay as he sets the deal in motion. A Shadow in the City confirms Bowden's reputation as a bold, genre-bending chronicler of the underworld.

PRAISE FORA SHADOW IN THE CITY

A Shadow in the Cityis a condemnation of the drug war, with a top officer saying the point of the war eludes him. But it's also a fascinating personal story about a man whose search for meaning in his life makes him reject his life's work. --The Washington Post Book World

“No writer casts a colder and more perceptive eye on our culture than Chuck Bowden. This is a look at drug enforcement that leaves you wishing it was a novel so it wouldn’t be true. The hero, Joey O’Shay, is an artist in his own genre and has to be one of the hardest men in our history.”--Jim Harrison, author ofLegends of the Fall

HE PUTS THE GUN DOWN. It is close, his finger beside the trigger, the round chambered and ready. Then the man moving toward him hesitates, and the moment passes. Joey O'Shay's face remains passive, a blank as he reaches for the gun and sweeps it up, a blank as he lowers it and puts it down.

He says, Never hesitate, never say a fucking thing, none of this hands-up shit. Just keep pumping them into him. If you want to live.

O'Shay looks at the departing man without expression.

The bluing has worn off the weapon.

The city does not sleep at this hour but becomes a zone of zombies, that time when tlÃÂ