The Long Night

THE LONG NIGHT

“The rain came down like it had a grudge against Chicago, the kind of summer storm that turns streets into rivers and washes yesterday’s sins into tomorrow’s problems. Perfect weather for drinking alone.”

When society wife Eleanor Standish hires private investigator Frank Harlow to follow her husband—Chicago’s ambitious three-term mayor—she claims she suspects an affair. But what begins as routine surveillance quickly spirals into something far deadlier. Instead of trysts with a mistress, Harlow discovers clandestine meetings between the mayor and powerful industrialist Thomas Maxwell, meetings that leave trails of corrupt contracts, political payoffs, and eventually, dead bodies.

The case takes a personal turn when Harlow meets Vivian Cole, the mayor’s elegant secretary harboring secrets of her own. Her husband, Raymond, died three years earlier in what was ruled an accident, but the deeper Harlow digs, the more certain he becomes that Raymond Cole was murdered for what he discovered about Maxwell’s business empire.

As Harlow and Vivian form an uneasy alliance to uncover the truth, they find themselves entangled in a web of corruption that reaches the highest levels of Chicago society. Evidence vanishes, witnesses disappear, and someone begins systematically eliminating anyone who threatens to expose the conspiracy. When Harlow’s own brother becomes endangered and Harlow is framed for murder, the case transforms from a professional assignment to a personal vendetta.

With his former partner from the police force, a medical examiner who refuses to be silenced, and unlikely allies drawn from both sides of the law, Harlow races to unravel the mystery before Maxwell’s ruthless enforcers can complete their deadly cleanup operation. But in a city where money talks and power corrupts, the line between justice and revenge grows increasingly blurred.

Harlow will need to decide how far he’s willing to go to expose the truth—and whether justice for the dead is worth risking everything for the living.