Messenger of Death

Garret Smith works a massacre that looks like a holy war and smells like something older and dirtier. He talks his way into a fractured patriarch's confidence, absorbs competing accusations from two estranged brothers whose shared symbol is an avenging angel, and chases a motive that keeps shape-shifting. His defining vice is persistence without instinct; he keeps pushing forward when intuition would serve him better than legwork. The corporate machinery behind the bodies tightens around him just as the family feud explodes into open gunfire. Garret stands in the middle of it, trying to broker peace while the real killer positions for the cleanest shot.