Along the ever changing border of gentrifying Los Angeles, seventeen year old Monique Darson is found dead at a condominium construction site, hanging in the closet of an unfinished unit. Homicide detective Elouise "Lou" Norton's new partner, Colin Taggert, fresh from the comparatively bucolic Colorado Springs police department, assumes it's a teenage suicide. Lou isn't buying the easy explanation. For one thing, the condo site is owned by Napoleon Crase, a self made millionaire. . .and the man who may have murdered Lou's missing sister, Tori, thirty years ago. As Lou investigates the death of Monique Darson, she uncovers undeniable links between the two cases. But her department is skeptical. Lou is convinced that when she solves Monique's case she will finally bring her lost sister home. But as she gets closer to the truth, she also gets closer to a violent killer. After all this time, can he be brought to justice. . .before Lou becomes his next victim? Homicide detective Elouise “Lou” Norton knows that the young black woman hanging in the closet of an unfinished Los Angeles condominium complex isn’t a suicide. She also knows that the development belongs to Napoleon Crase, the last person to see her sister alive before she disappeared 30 years ago. With a wet-behind-the-ears new partner to train and a husband who’s blaming the time difference while away on business for missed phone calls, Lou already has a lot on her plate. But nobody’s going to get between her and this murder. Lou is a good cop and fun to watch—great instincts, a no-nonsense interviewing style, and uncompromising in her efforts to catch the bad guy. She’s a well-rounded character who can keep her sense of humor even when her work hits painfully close to home. As she tells her partner, “I’m sassy, but not Florence-the-Jeffersons’-maid sassy.” Hall’s first book, A Quiet Storm (2002), was a domestic drama about a family facing mental illness; here she moves easily into the suspense genre—where hopefully she and Officer Norton will stay for a long time to come. --Karen Keefe "A fresh voice in crime fiction. Fast, funny, heartbreaking and wise...Elouise Norton is the best new character you'll meet this year." --Lee Child, New York Times bestselling author "Spellbinding. Gritty. Original, complex, profound, and riveting. This is a voice you have never heard--and will be unable to forget. Prepare to be blown away." --Hank Phillippi Ryan, Mary Higgins Clark Award-winning author "Intense, gritty and absolutely riveting, Land of Shadows took my breath away. A phenomenal book I'm recommending far and wide." -- Hilary Davidson, Anthony Award-winning author, Blood Always Tells "A hardhitting tale of a modern, complex Los Angeles. Well-written and deftly paced...a story that stays with you after the last page is read." --Gary Phillips, author of Warlord of Willow Ridge "A racially explosive Los Angeles provides the backdrop for this exceptional crime novel from Hall ( A Quiet Storm). Elouise "Lou" Norton, an LAPD homicide detective known on the street as "Lockjaw," has solved 90% of the cases she's led... Dead-on dialogue and atmospheric details help propel a tale full of tormenting moral issues. " - Publisher's Weekly (starred review) "The story shines during Lou's flashbacks to her childhood, which are filled with heart-wrenching memories that make the wisecracking detective more accessible....Recommended for libraries with a strong following for police procedurals and a welcome addition for collections seeking more diverse characters in the mystery genre." - Library Journal "Rachel Howzell Hall...writes with skill and flair. Her first novel exhibits a keen sense of pace and place, and an equally keen sense of what makes her wide and varied cast of characters tick. While relying on familiar tropes and motifs (the bumbling partner, the past haunting the present, politics getting in the way of solving crimes, among others), Hall gives them a unique edge." - Mystery Scene Magazine RACHEL HOWZELL HALL is the author of the acclaimed Lou Norton series, the standalone thriller They All Fall Down, and co-author of The Good Sister with James Patterson, which appeared in the New York Times bestselling anthology The Family Lawyer . She is the senior development officer for the Donor Relations Department at Cedars Sinai. Currently she serves on the Board of Directors for the Mystery Writers of America, is a member of Sisters in Crime, and has participated as a mentor in the Association of Writers and Writing Programs’ Writer-to-Writer Program. She lives in Los Angeles. 1 Two hundred and six bones make up the adult human skeleton. And on a Wednesday night in June, I was perfecting my hammer fist, an efficient strike that could break at least four of those bones. Fifteen minutes into my Krav Maga class, the bell tower rang—a ring tone chosen for Lieutenant Zak Rodriguez. And even though I was hammer fisting; even though, a yard away