introduces readers to Marko Zorn, a Washington, DC homicide detective with a strong moral compass who isn’t afraid to bend the rules to get results. The second thriller, Head Shot, was released in 2021 and the third book, Firetrap, was released in 2024. The Reflecting Pool, Head Shot, and Firetrap were all named Amazon Editors Picks for Best Mystery, Thriller or Suspense. The fourth book in the Marko Zorn series, Black Sun Rising, is now available, and has received enthusiastic advance praise: “Another Otho Eskin thriller that delivers double the trouble, twice the action, and quadruple the enjoyment.” —Steve Berry, New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author.
At CrimeReads Eskin tagged five "novels that depict the end (or near-end) of democracy." One title on the list:
Attica Locke’s Guide Me Home (2024)Read about another novel on the list.
The third book in Attica Locke’s beloved Highway 59 series, Guide Me Home tells of retired Texas Ranger Darren Mathews, as he grapples with past traumas and the socio-political upheavals of America, following the 2016 election. When Mathews’ mother re-emerges in his life, she shares news of a Black college student gone missing from her white sorority. Finding the investigation half-hearted and her sorority sisters eerily unfazed by her absence, Mathews sets out to solve the case and bring the young woman home. In the process, he’s forced to confront his own past and the ghosts of slavery and Jim Crow—long embedded in his native Texas but coming to surface in the era of Trump. Guide Me Home is reminiscent of what the scholar Jeff Sharlet calls the “slow civil war.” It tells not of a single democracy-shattering event, but of the steady unraveling of our society, as a result of white Americans’ failure to reckon with the sins of their forebears.
--Marshal Zeringue
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