Justice is supposed to be blind. Someone taught it to hunt.
A wealthy predator the courts set free hangs from his Hollywood Hills balcony, a houndstooth tie knotted at his throat with surgical precision. It's the calling card of Houndstooth from the Piano Keys, a vigilante syndicate law enforcement swears is only a ghost story. Where the justice system fails Black lives, their hands correct the scales. They have done it without getting caught for generations.
FBI Special Agent Justine Hendrix intends to be the first. But the Keys leave nothing behind except cooling bodies and that flawless pattern, and she keeps arriving seconds too late. Dismissed by a Bureau that calls her theory folklore and handed a career-ending ultimatum, she stakes everything on her only lead: Alexander Mason. Consultant. Pristine record. Disciplined mind. Buried past. And an allure she can't afford and can't escape.
Convinced he is the assassin codenamed Houndstooth, Justine opens an unsanctioned deep-cover operation and sets a honey trap to flip him. But the closer she gets, the thinner the line between hunter and prey becomes. As their chemistry ignites and fresh bodies drop, she must decide whether she's closing in on a monster or surrendering to the man she swore to destroy.
A debut from Emiliano Styles, Houndstooth traces a single act of vengeance from a present-day balcony back to its origin in 1831, when one man stopped waiting for permission to be granted justice. A Black-led literary thriller with the pulse of a blockbuster. Sleek, atmospheric, and morally charged.
When justice is denied, who gets to balance the scales?
