• Steve Vail has the brains and the brawn to crack the toughest cases in the mold of John Sandford’s Lucas Davenport and Lee Child’s Jack Reacher.

• The author was a highly successful FBI agent with over 20 years experience hunting some of the country’s most prolific serial killers, including the Green River Killer and the Highland Park Strangler. His intimate knowledge of the Bureau’s inner workings, including its weaknesses, and his "in the trenches" experience lends unusual authenticity to Vail’s character and the novel’s investigative details.

• William Morrow preempted this novel and two more Steve Vail thrillers within two days of submission. HarperCollins UK preempted the first three novels as well.

Someone will kill and kill again if it means he can fool the FBI . . .

Ex-FBI agent Steve Vail is more than happy to leave the Bureau behind, but they aren’t through with him yet. A group called the Rubaco Pentad is killing human targets one by one unless the FBI can give them buckets of cash, with the amount and the body count escalating each time the agency doesn’t pay up. The Feds are stumped. Some signs point to a corrupt agent while others lead to completely dead ends. Vail has built a reputation for being able to find anybody anywhere. Now, with no official ties, he’s the perfect choice for the sort of under-the-radar investigation they need. But as Vail well knows, going after people who use killing as a bargaining chip is asking for the worst kind of trouble.

The Bricklayer is a gripping debut of an iconic new hero, and is brought to us with the startling authenticity only a real insider can provide. Noah Boyd has created a mind-twisting maze of clues inside a nonstop thrill ride that is guaranteed to keep readers on edge until the final page.