In the Hush of the Night ― A Thriller

From the New York Times bestselling author comes a gritty, riveting tale of modern crime, featuring a female FBI agent embroiled in a Russian human trafficking case.

Chicago Special Agent Annie Marino examines the case of a dead young woman who possesses a tattoo Annie has come across before—that of bloody bear claws. Several deceased women with the tattoo have turned up over the past few years, all suspected of being involved in a vast human trafficking operation.

Annie’s neighborhood friend, Jason Ward, is a young writer engaged to be married into an upper-class family from a posh Chicago suburb. Jason believes his future brother-in-law, a war veteran, is definitely a bully—but does he also have ties to the Russian mob?

Yana Kravec, a woman from St. Petersburg, Russia, has been fraudulently lured into a trafficking scheme and thrown into a horrid and seemingly hopeless situation. She is, however, determined to fight back and escape her captors.

Annie’s investigation eventually uncovers a sordid plot of procuring slaves overseas and marketing them in the US. Her interests soon coincide with those of Jason and Yana, bringing the trio together to fight against a deadly network of criminals. As the separate lives of these characters collide, their paths ultimately converge in a night of terror and survival in a Michigan forest, where they become the prey of evil men who will stop at nothing to protect their secrets.

Raymond Benson is most well-known for being the third—and first American—author to be commissioned by the James Bond literary estate to write the 007 novels between 1996–2002. He has been called "a first class thriller craftsman" by Lee Child and "one of the best thriller writers in the business" by David Morrell. He is the author of thirty-six books, including the New York Times bestselling The Black Stiletto series, now in development as a feature film, and most recently The Secrets on Chicory Lane. Benson lives in Chicago, Illinois.