Chicago, 1975.

Brigid Carlson, fledgling "leg man" for acclaimed newspaper columnist Mike Royko, finds herself in a nondescript suburban office building late on a freezing Valentine's Day, a gangster dead at her feet. Panic rising, she realizes she has no idea what to do, but she also knows she has her first big scoop.

If, that is, she's allowed to pursue it.

Brigid soon learns the murder is part of a ruthless plot that revolves around her boss's longtime bête noire, Mayor Richard J. Daley, a discovery that has the killer turning his sights on her. Pushing forward despite daunting odds, Brigid ends up questioning whether what she's discovered is real or part of an elaborate con - and whether she can trust anyone, including her charming new boyfriend. Impressed by his assistant's resourcefulness, Royko joins Brigid in the hunt for the truth. This leads him deep into his own troubled past - and to a surprise connection between the powerful mayor he despises and the most famous mobster of all time: the late, great Al Capone.

"Perry is a fine writer and an insightful one." - Chicago Tribune

"Perry deftly captures the sharp lingo of determined reporters and seizes on the gritty, cutthroat atmosphere of mid-70s Chicago." - The BookLife Prize

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Douglas Perry is the author of the nonfiction books The Girls of Murder City: Fame, Lust, and the Beautiful Killers Who Inspired 'Chicago, ' which The Wall Street Journal called "a sexy, swaggering historical tale," and the bestselling Eliot Ness: The Rise and Fall of an American Hero. The Lex is his second novel.