Marv Slocum is the worst private investigator in Los Angeles. He talks too much. He can't sit still. His office smells like regret and yesterday's takeout. And he's about to accidentally dismantle a criminal empire that's been operating in the shadows for thirty years. All Marv had to do was follow a cheating husband for a few days. Snap some photos. Collect a check. Move on to the next sad case. He's done it a hundred times. But this husband is connected to people who don't like being noticed. People who move money for cartels. People who make problems disappear. And Marv—bumbling, rambling, catastrophically unlucky Marv—has just become a very big problem. Within days, bodies start dropping. A young woman with dreams of law school winds up dead. The husband vanishes. And a shadowy group of executives who call themselves the Consortium suddenly have Marv's name circled in red. They should just kill him. That's what they do. Clean. Quiet. Professional. But Marv won't stop stumbling into rooms he shouldn't be in. He won't stop asking questions that make powerful people nervous. And every time they think they've contained the damage, he somehow makes it worse—for everyone, including himself. Now the Consortium is fracturing. Old alliances are crumbling. A cartel enforcer known only as El Cuervo is hunting for answers. And Marv, who still can't figure out why any of this is happening, has become the most dangerous man in Los Angeles—not because he's smart or tough or connected, but because he's a walking disaster who refuses to die. The Meridian Job is a dark, propulsive crime thriller with a blackly comic edge—for readers who love the cartel authenticity of Don Winslow, the sharp-tongued antiheroes of Elmore Leonard, the Florida-noir chaos of Carl Hiaasen, and the savage wit of Duane Swierczynski. It's a story about what happens when the wrong guy stumbles into the right mess. When incompetence becomes a survival strategy. When the only thing standing between a criminal conspiracy and total collapse is one man who can't stop making everything worse. Marv Slocum didn't ask to be a hero. He's not even sure he qualifies as a functional adult. But the bodies keep piling up, the clock keeps ticking, and somewhere out there, very dangerous people are starting to realize that the biggest threat to their operation isn't the FBI or the DEA. It's a middle-aged PI with impulse control issues and a talent for being in exactly the wrong place at exactly the wrong time. The first book in a new crime series. The disaster is just getting started.