Box Nine

The problem with dressing like a hooker is that there's no place to put the gun.
So thinks Lenore Thomas during a stakeout of drug-infested Bangkok Park in the decaying New England factory town of Quinsigamond.

However, that's far from Lieutenant Thomas's only problem. There's the sexual cat-and-mouse game she's been playing with the city's top druglord, the bumbling of her rather stupid partner (and ex-lover), and her deepening addiction to speed--and violence. And now there's a new danger: an incredibly hazardous psychedelic drug called "Lingo" has just hit the streets. Its explosive effects threaten to turn the already nightmarish Bangkok Park into a true urban hell.

Lenore's twin brother Ike, an employee of the Post Office, is involved in an investigation of his own. Strange things, awful things, have been delivered to P.O. Box 9. Ike turns to his boss, the hypnotically domineering Eva, but her suggestions aren't exactly by the book.

In this startlingly original novel of suspense, Jack O'Connell draws a haunting portrait of a young woman's disintegration as it mirrors the decay of an aging American city.