Vietnam 1966. Six U.S. Marines run frantically through the jungle as a vicious battle swirls around them. A bomb drops in their midst, killing five and wounding one. A lone Marine comes to the injured man's aid. He removes the man's dog tags, fires a shotgun into his face, sets the body afire and disappears into the jungle. Thirty years later in Sarasota, Florida, when a murder investigation is closed under suspicious circumstances, ex-detective, Jack Sterling, takes it upon himself to find his friend's killer and unwittingly stumbles into a trail of blackmail and murder leads all the way to Capitol Hill.

Joseph Allen Costa grew up in Tampa, received his B.A. from the University of South Florida and his MFA in creative writing from the University of Tampa. He is the author of three novels, including THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE GOALIE, and DISCOVERING DYNAMITE, and has been published in BULL men's fiction magazine. He currently lives in Tampa with his wife and two children.