The drug is called Lingo, and it’s the most powerful narcotic Lenore has ever seen. This cheaply manufactured pill races straight for the brain’s language center, supercharging it so that even a dimwitted person can speak and read at 1,500 words per minute. It induces giddiness, confidence, and sexual euphoria — with a side effect of murderous rage. The drug has come to Quinsigamond, a fading industrial center in the heart of Massachusetts, and it’s going to tear this town apart. Lenore believes she can stop that from happening. A narcotics detective with a few addictions of her own — amphetamines and heavy metal, to name a couple — she loves nothing more than her gun, until she meets Dr. Frederick Woo, the linguist assisting her on the case. Together they can stop the drug — if it doesn’t take hold of them first.

Jakob Kinsky believes that the noir film that will put him on the map is just waiting to be filmed in the decaying New England town of Quinsigamond. While searching for the "elemental image," he meets a photographer with a mystery of her own to solve. Their respective quests entangle them with evangelists, feminists, erotic brokers, a missing 10-year-old, and a porn theater known as Herzog's Erotic Palace. HC: Mysterious Press.

Though they posture themselves as revolutionary, the jammers are harmless. Radio nerds who gather each night at a nightclub called Wireless, they get their kicks by jamming commercial radio signals, hijacking their frequencies to broadcast anarchist messages to the ordinary citizens of Quinsigamond. But even though they do no harm, their hobby has attracted murderous attention. Speer’s killing spree starts with a priest. The one-time seminary student and ex — FBI agent has tired of seeing the city’s cathedral denigrated by immigrants, addicts, and gang members, and he blames Father Todorov for catering to the undesirables. He corners the priest in the confessional and takes out his rage with a Bowie knife. Now he wants the blood of the fiery young anarchists who hijack his radio dial each evening. Homicide detective Hannah Shaw must infiltrate this strange subculture before it is dismantled by Speer’s blade.

Welcome to Quinsigamond, a worn-out New England town infected by a soulless cabal that rules the streets. Gilrein used to be one of the good guys, until this dark world claimed the life of his wife and fellow police officer, Ceil. Even exchanging his badge for a cab still cannot erase the past or the long-buried instincts Gilrein honed on the beat.

When suspected of possessing a missing rarity that someone is all too willing to murder for, Gilrein races to unearth long-buried secrets. And the only people he can turn to are the Inspector, a detective and master of linguistics who can shed light on the secret life Ceil led-and how it ended; Otto Langer, a haunted refugee from Eastern Europe; and Wylie Brown, Gilrein's ex-lover whose passion for a century-old murderer knows no bounds.

O'Connell has crafted a spellbinding novel about stories and what they can do for and those who create them and those who consume them. About the nature of consciousness and the power of the unknown. And, ultimately, about forgiveness and the depth of our need to extend it and receive it.