The Deal Goes Down

Larry Beinhart

A legendary, Edgar-Awarding winning writer returns with a gripping thriller about blackmail, skiing and the deep state…

Ex-private eye Tony Cassella lives in the Catskill mountains, a lonely old tough guy whose body can no longer do what it once did. His wife and son are dead; his daughter barely talks to him; his bank is threatening to repossess his house. But a chance encounter with a rich young woman on a train changes everything. He is hired to kill her superrich, Jeffrey Epstein-ish husband. That job leads to others and he joins a small start-up whose mission is to save women from abusive marriages—and make a tidy profit to boot.

Tony’s problems seem to be over, but are they? An old, angry associate is determined to get his cut of Tony’s earnings, murky government agents start to tail him, and when he sent to the Austrian alps to kill a Russian oligarch and rescue his American wife, all hells breaks loose…

Packed with action The Deal Goes Down is an unforgettable portrait of a Lion in Winter who still has a few tricks up his sleeve, from a writer garlanded with awards and critical acclaim.

Larry Beinhart is best known as the author of Wag the Dog (originally published as American Hero) on which the film starring Robert DeNiro, Dustin Hoffman, Willie Nelson and Woody Harrelson was based. His No One Rides for Free (1986) received the 1987 Edgar Award for Best First Novel. Beinhart spent two years in Oxford, England, where he was the Raymond Chandler Fulbright Fellow at Wadham College. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, and the Chicago Tribune. Beinhart worked for AlJazeera English, on the TV news magazine show Empire as a Writer/Producer/Director. He resides in Woodstock, New York.

”From the gripping opening line … Beinhart never takes his foot off the gas in the outstanding fourth outing for Tony Cassella… Fans of darkly funny crime dramas such as Fargo will be hooked.” –Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW

”There’s enough action in this thoroughly enjoyable comedy of errors to please the most discriminating reader, but it’s the humor that captures.” –Library Journal

”Determinedly offbeat…the enjoyment Beinhart derives from his spritzing, free-wheeling approach lifts the book, which at its best is a cross between Stanley Elkin and Raymond Chandler… A comic noir witih a voice all its own.” –Kirkus Reviews

“Phenomenal…I loved this novel! No one writes in this genre like Beinhart. And very few in any other genre. The things Beinhart does to make the characters breath, get under our skin. What a joy to read!” —Juan José Campanella, director of the Oscar-winning The Secret in Their Eyes

”Beinhart brilliantly drags Chandler to the tangled woods of the Catskill Mountains, resulting in a first rate – and first – noir-murder-Buddhist-comic-Woodstock-thriller. Fantastic fun.” —Shalom Auslander, author of Foreskin’s Lament