HOUNDSTOOTH

Justice is supposed to be blind. Someone taught it to hunt.

A wealthy predator the courts set free hangs from his Hollywood Hills balcony, a houndstooth tie knotted at his throat with surgical precision. It's the calling card of the Piano Keys, a vigilante syndicate that law enforcement swears is only a ghost story. Where the system fails Black lives, their hands correct the scales. They have done it for generations. They have never once been caught.

FBI Special Agent Justine Hendrix intends to be the first to catch them. But the Keys leave nothing behind except cooling bodies and that flawless pattern, and she keeps arriving seconds too late. Dismissed by a Bureau that calls her theory folklore and handed a career-ending ultimatum, she stakes everything on her only lead: Alexander Mason, a consultant with a pristine record, a disciplined mind, a buried past, and an irresistible allure she can't escape.

Convinced he is the assassin codenamed Houndstooth, Justine opens an unsanctioned deep-cover operation and sets a honey trap to flip him. But the closer she gets, the thinner the line between hunter and prey becomes. As their chemistry ignites and fresh bodies drop, she must decide whether she's closing in on a monster, or surrendering to the man she swore to destroy.

A debut from Emiliano Styles, Houndstooth traces a single act of vengeance from a present-day balcony back to its origin in 1831, when one man stopped waiting for permission to be granted justice. A Black-led literary thriller with the pulse of a blockbuster. Houndstooth is sleek, atmospheric, and morally charged. It asks an old question in a new voice: when justice is denied, who gets to balance the scales?

Why readers can't put it down:

• A neon-lit cat-and-mouse set in the suspended stillness of modern Los Angeles
• Two formidable minds circling each other at the highest level
• A vigilante mythology rooted in real history, from 1831 to now
• A slow-burn, dangerous romance where secrets are currency and the heart is the deadliest weapon

For readers of S.A. Cosby and Attica Locke, and fans of Killing Eve and Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

Revenge chases karma to grant reckoning. Claim your copy today!