John Sandford: The Empress File (UK 2020)

From the Publisher:
The ultimate con game thriller from the internationally bestselling master of suspense, John Sandford
When the cops of Longstreet, Mississippi see a black boy running away from them and clutching something in his hand, there's only one thought in their minds - bag-snatcher. So they shoot him in the back. Except, Darrell Clark isn't a thief, he's a computer-crazy fourteen-year-old, who was running home before his ice-cream melted. And now he's dead.

When the predictable police cover-up begins, Darrell's friend, Marvel Atkins, decides it's time for the corrupt city government to go. Using Darrell's computer, she contacts the only two con artists with the nerve to take on a whole city: Kidd, computer-hacker extraordinaire, and his partner and some-time lover, LuEllen. To pull this off, the sting has to be perfect. And it will be, because if Kidd knows one thing, it's this: a corrupt city regime is about as stable as a house of cards. All he has to know is where to push...

John Sandford: The Empress File. A Kidd Novel. Pocket Books, ISBN: 9781471182150 (October, 2020), 4.6 MB (ca. 400 p.), £4.99.

John Sandford: The Empress File (UK 2003)

From the Publisher:
When the cops of Longstreet, Mississippi see a black boy running away from them and clutching something in his hand, there's only one thought in their minds - bag-snatcher. So they shoot him in the back. Except, Darrell Clark isn't a thief, he's a computer-crazy fourteen-year-old, who was running home before his ice-cream melted. And now he's dead.

When the predictable police cover-up begins, Darrell's friend, Marvel Atkins, decides it's time for the corrupt city government to go. Using Darrell's computer, she contacts the only two con artists with the nerve to take on a whole city: Kidd, computer-hacker extraordinaire, and his partner and some-time lover, Lu-Ellen. To pull this off, the sting has to be perfect. And it will be, because if Kidd knows one thing, it's this: a corrupt city regime is about as stable as a house of cards. All he has to know is where to push...

John Sandford: The Empress File. A Kidd Novel. Pocket Books, ISBN: 0743415590 (January, 2003), 240 p., £6.99.

John Sandford: The Empress File (USA 1995)

From the Publisher:
FROM THE BESTSELLING MASTER OF SUSPENSE...
A HEART-STOPPING NOVEL OF THE PERFECT CRIME
John Sandford's bestselling Prey novels established his reputation for top-notch suspense. The New York Times said: "Mr. Sandford knows all there is to know about detonating the gut-level shocks of a good thriller." The Pittsburgh Press hailed him as "the world's newest thrill master," and The Philadelphia Inquirer raved, "Alfred Hitchcock would have been delighted!"

THE EMPRESS FILE...
is John Sandford's most ingenious and captivating novel of suspense, set in the shadowy world of high- profit scams and con games. With the same riveting human insight he brings to the murderers and manhunters of his acclaimed Prey novels, Sandford takes us into the minds of two irresistible con artists -- Kidd and LuEllen -- a winning pair of lovers and liars plotting the ultimate sting. Their target is the wealthy (and corrupt) mayor of a small Mississippi river town. Their set-up includes buying a houseboat, assuming false identities, and exposing local scandals. Their scam is perfect. Until everything goes wrong...

"THE IMAGINATIVE CON SCHEME IS CLEVER... BUT THE BIGGEST THRILLS OCCUR WHEN EVENTS DON'T GO AS PLANNED." -- Library Journal
"WITTY AND CINEMATIC... ENGROSSING!" -- Publishers Weekly

John Sandford: The Empress File. Berkley Books, ISBN: 0425135020 (November, 1995), 368 p., $5.99 (?).

John Camp: The Empress File (USA 1991)

From the Publisher:
One stifling summer night in Longstreet, Mississippi, fourteen-year-old Darrell Clark ran home thinking about two things: the ice cream he couldn't wait to eat and an algorithm he was working on, a way to generate real time fractal terrain on his Macintosh computer. The cops who shot him in the back, mistaking him for a pursesnatcher, found the ice cream in the paper bag on the ground next to Darrell. They'd never know anything about computers, or about the events they had just set in motion.

When the predictable cover-up occurs, a group of blacks, led by Marvel Atkins, decide the time for action has come. The city government must go. Through Darrell's computer, Marvel, with the incredible liquid eyes, links up with Kidd, who takes on jobs that may be a little beyond the law. She lays out the objective but he makes the plan. The mayor, city council, city attorney are all corrupt. The firehouse is the center for drug dealing, and the recreation director skims money like algae from the municipal swimming pool. And then there's Duane Hill, the dog catcher/enforcer who uses Dobermans to get his way. Kidd will simply find the crack in the machine and work it until the city comes down like a house of Tarot Cards.

Kidd likes the tarot because it forces him outside his preconceptions, makes him test new theories. All he has to do is watch out for the Empress; the tarot says she is trouble. Is it LuEllen, his partner in crime and sometimes in bed? Or Mayor Chenille Dessusdelit, whose ambition is as wide as the Mississippi? Or Marvel herself?-for as Kidd knows, idealism can be very, very dangerous.

John Camp has given us another masterpiece of suspense, a stunning successor to The Fool's Run, which was called "marvelous" (San Diego Union): "gripping, an ultramodern novel, fast-paced and suspenseful" (Chicago Tribune): "high-intellect puzzle solving, dandy characters" (Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune): and "exciting and imaginative" (Orlando Sentinel). Camp, who is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, also wrote the best-selling Rules of Prey, -- "grabs you by the throat and won't let go" (Robert Parker) -- and Shadow Prey

John Camp: The Empress File. Henry Holt, ISBN: 0805015450 (April, 1991), 231 p., $18.95.