The Outside Man
Chapters (42)
- Cover Page
- EARLY BIRD BOOKS
- Praise for the Writing of Richard North Patterson
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- About the Author
Cover Page
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Praise for the Writing of Richard North Patterson
PRAISE FOR THE WRITING OF RICHARD NORTH PATTERSON
“This generation’s best writer of legal thrillers.” —Entertainment Weekly
“Patterson is a natural storyteller who never breaks the thread of action.” —The New York Times
“Richard North Patterson seems destined for celebrity status, alongside Scott Turow and John Grisham, as an acknowledged master.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review
The Outside Man
“Rich, complex, beautifully written.” —The New Republic
“A classic detective story.” —The New York Times Book Review
Escape the Night
“Intricate … Intelligent and menacing.” —The Boston Globe
Private Screening
“Enthralling … A compelling read.” —The Washington Post Book World
“Thrilling … Private Screening succeeds on all counts. It’s a footrace of a read, daring you to put it down.” —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Title Page
The Outside Man
Richard North Patterson
Dedication
For Jesse Hill Ford
Epigraph
Murder doesn’t round out anybody’s life except the murdered’s and maybe the murderer’s.
Nick Charles, from
Dashiell Hammett’s
The Thin Man
We sail with a corpse in the cargo.
Ibsen
One
ONE
Perhaps the murders were fated when I met Kris Ann, then moved with her here, to Alabama. The move was a change of plans. I’d meant us to live in Washington. We never did, and so three deaths began waiting in the ambush of time.
Seven years passed, and then Cade handed me the envelope. It seemed like nothing at all. I’d come from a Saturday partners’ meeting called to set new rates—nineteen southern Protestants and me at a long walnut table buffed so high I could see my face in it—trying to feel like one hundred eighty dollars an hour. It took some imagination. So when Cade caught me near the elevator and with a quick, chill glance at my blue jeans asked if I’d drop some papers with Lydia Cantwell, my only thought was to do that much for free.
Outside the morning was hazy from the smokestacks of our clients and the streets looked stale and a little hungover, like a room full of cigarette smoke after a long party. Behind my parking space the neon sign of a dingy department store murmured its fatigue in old-fashioned cursive letters. I tossed the envelope on the passenger seat and drove south with the top down through near-empty streets, then up and over a sudden barrier of green wooded hills until the city behind me dropped abruptly from sight.