Ball presents a dystopian period thriller in which a chilling series of events leads three different men to join in exposing the legacy of a radical program for punishing murderers. Set in an unnamed U.S. big city in 1935, Ball's impressive thriller debut opens with a vivid description of "the Vaults," where archivist Arthur Puskis has worked for almost three decades. He's the only person who understands the system of filing criminal cases in the vast underground storage facility in the subbasement of city hall. When Puskis, amid the drudgery of his lonely job, discovers two files with the same alphanumeric identifier but with different contents, the implications threaten the foundations of the massively corrupt municipal government headed by Mayor Red Henry. In particular, the find raises questions about why a number of convicted killers were never actually incarcerated. The archivist's dogged legwork coincides with a series of bombings aimed at close allies of the mayor, and the plot steamrolls to a dramatic conclusion. Ball's "City," in which despair and graft are almost palpable, is an imaginative achievement on a par with Loren Estleman's Gas City. --Publishers Weekly starred review Toby Ball was born in Washington, DC, grew up in Syracuse, NY, and attended Trinity College (CT). He has had stints in journalism (Congressional Quarterly), education (one memorable year as a high school social studies teacher), and nonprofits (the Carbon Coalition among others). He is now the Business Manager at the Crimes against Children Research Center and the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire. He lives in Durham, NH, with his wife and two children.