Half Off by Burnett

About the book

Detroit is burning!

In the 300 page action/adventure novel, Half Off, a cabal of Colombian drug lords conspire to inflict an unprecedented epidemic of violent crime on the Motor City. As a result, every ordinary Joe or Jane can have a troublesome spouse professionally whacked, or a failing business expertly torched -- at discount prices! Homicide Detectives Ray Zybicki (he's white) and Drew Hoard (he's black) have a very personal stake in all this: Chief Prosecutor James Ryan has bankrolled a contract hit on their lives, by international superstar terrorist Klaus Winkler. Employing an eclectic group of pawns (Neo-Nazi bikers, inner city gang bangers), Winkler plays a deadly game of cat and mouse with the cops, a game they may or may not be expected to survive.

As incidents of murder, arson, rape, and looting escalate out of control, it soon becomes clear that no help is forthcoming from Washington. Detroit falls victim in a game of partisan politics hardball, and left to fend for itself. An even more immediate concern for Zybicki and Hoard are the hundred dirty cops, owned by Ryan, scouring the streets hunting the detectives down. With very bad intentions. Hoard and Zybicki can trust no one. It's against this chaotic backdrop that the detectives are compelled toward a confrontation with the terrorist Winkler, a man Hoard knows all too well.

The story is resolved in multiple double-crosses, the biggest of which is the murder of Prosecutor James Ryan -- at the hands of Klaus Winkler.