The Numbers
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4.5 • 82 Ratings
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
The electrifying prequel and perfect introduction to the bestselling and fan-favorite Thomas Prescott series, with over 1.3 million downloads and 10,000+ five-star ratings on Amazon and Goodreads!
After getting canned from the Seattle PD, brilliant, wisecracking Thomas Prescott follows his sister Lacy to Philadelphia, where she swims on the Drexel University team. While Thomas’s slapstick antics mask a keen analytic mind, it’s his nose for trouble that leads him again and again into dicey situations. The ex–homicide detective is not long in Philly before getting caught up in two high-powered criminal cases.
Thomas stumbles into a crime scene amid the Occupy Philadelphia protests. Activist Brooke Wexley has been strangled within sight of city hall. While demonstrating against economic inequality, the college student hid her own family’s wealthy background. The über-rich Wexleys have many dark secrets—one of which may have led to Brooke’s violent death.
Thomas is also called to join an emergency multiagency task force on the trail of a prolific serial killer who leaves gruesome calling cards: a three-digit number carved on each of his many victims. It’s when Thomas realizes the murders are linked to the Numbers—the old illegal street lottery—that his investigation shifts into high gear. The trail jumps back to the past before rushing back to the present like a tsunami of fire, bent on revenge.
Amid all this, Lacy has a health scare, and Thomas’s priorities shift. Encountering gambling church ladies, felonious businessmen, and murderous mobsters—with an investigation hampered by a competitive colleague and Lacy’s narcoleptic pug—Thomas must summon all his considerable powers to root out the guilty and dangerous while caring for his adored sister.
Reader’s Note: This book takes place when Thomas Prescott is thirty years old (three years before the events of Unforeseen). If you are new to the Thomas Prescott series, this is the perfect place to start!
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set three years before the events of 2008's Unforeseen, Pirog's rollicking sixth outing for Thomas Prescott (after 2021's Jungle Up) takes 30-year-old Prescott, recently fired from the Seattle PD, to Philadelphia, where his college-age sister, Lacy, is burning up the water on Drexel University's swim team, and the local police are stretched thin with anti-corporation protestors. Prescott confirms the death of one protestor, Brooke Wexley, a super-wealthy financier's daughter found strangled inside her tent at a protest site. Soon afterward, the short-handed police captain of Philadelphia's Ninth District asks Prescott to sign on as a consultant to catch a serial killer who's murdered three people in the past two weeks, engraving a different set of three numbers on each victim's forehead. Prescott's intuition and instinct serve him well in his investigation of Brooke's murder and the other killings, which involve a Mafia-run numbers racket. Prescott's panache holds up through frat-house hijinks, police distrust, a demented hacker ex-girlfriend, and even Lacy's MS diagnosis as the action builds to a shocking climax that turns everything he's learned inside out. This fanciful, funny caper, the perfect starting point for newcomers, cries out for a TV adaptation.
Customer Reviews
Prescott Never Disappoints!
Great story! Quick read! Entertaining as always! Highly recommended!
The Numbers
Loved this book and recommend it highly! The characters were well developed, the plot really moved, I laughed out loud quite a few times, and the identity of the killer was a surprise!
This book is Totally!
The Thomas Prescott series is Amazing. Since this is a prequel, I will call it Totally. Altogether, it equals Totally Amazing.
It is always a fun read to catch up with Thomas, Lacy and Baxter. The clever plot twists and smart storyline never fail to impress. Another must read from Nick Pirog!