THE POOR BOY'S GAME

A former U.S. Marshal tries to overcome a background that's left her emotionally scarred.

Even before she quits her job as a Marshal following a routine capture that goes wrong, leaving a close friend dead, Frannie Mullen had been struggling to come to terms with her past. Her father, Patrick, is doing time for his service as a corrupt union’s brutal enforcer; her fragile sister Mae is a drug addict just out of rehab; and Frannie can’t allow herself to have feelings for Wyatt, a biker with a tough past who’s been working to change his life for the better. Her only support comes from a fellow agent known as Sleeper and a childhood girlfriend on the Philadelphia police force. When her father breaks out of prison, her ex-boss thinks Frannie was an accomplice. Union members and an Italian crime family all want Patrick dead, especially once he kills the son of a union boss. As Patrick flits like a shadow through the mean streets, Frannie and her sister become targets for a series of vicious attacks meant to lure him out in the open. The body count rises as Frannie struggles to keep herself, Mae and her father’s pregnant girlfriend alive. But with the Marshals, the FBI and the Philadelphia police all involved, Fannie wonders whom she can trust.

Tafoya (The Wolves of Fairmont Park, 2010, etc.) continues to explore the fine line between good and evil. This brutal installment features complex characters and a truly shocking ending.