Head Cases

John McMahon | Paperback | January 2025

The first in a brand-new action-packed spy thriller series from a bestselling author, perfect for readers of Mick Herron, David Baldacci and John Grisham

Mick Herron's Slow Horses meets David Baldacci's The Camel Club in a hot new series. When a serial killer starts targeting other serial killers, and seems to be one step ahead of the FBI at every turn, only one team of misfits has a chance of stopping him ...

Gardner Camden is a walking analytical brain with an affinity for riddles, puzzles, and codes. It makes him the perfect fit for the Patterns and Recognition (PAR) unit of the FBI, a team of five brilliant but misfit agents who are too talented, too extraordinary to fire from the Bureau.

Gardner's smart, but he's all business - except for his seven-year-old daughter and occasional visits to his elderly mother, he prioritises his work and justice over everything else, no matter the cost.

A serial killer from one of Gardner's solved cases, presumed to be long dead, is found murdered, and then soon after, another body with a similar story. The mastermind murderer has left clues and riddles for Gardner and his team - a mathematician, a sniper and weapons expert, a computer analytics specialist, and their leader, a career agent - as they track him across the country. With the threat of PAR dissolving, the team can't afford to make any mistakes and Gardner must work to solve the riddles before it's too late.

McMahon's suspenseful and irresistible thriller confronts the scales of justices in the face of a twisted vengeance plot as this engaging cast of characters works together to stop a misguided vigilante.

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Author Info

The New York Times called John McMahon's debut novel, The Good Detective, "pretty much perfect" and listed it among their Top Ten Crime Novels of 2019. The book was a finalist for the 2020 Edgar Award and the ITW Thriller Award, both for Best First Novel. Head Cases is his fourth novel.

John currently lives in Southern California with his wife, two kids and a rescue dog. He splits his time between crime writing and his day job in advertising.