Everybody Knows

Set in contemporary Los Angeles, the novel follows two protagonists whose separate investigations into a murder collide, exposing a vast network of corruption, abuse, and cover-ups stretching from Hollywood to the highest levels of finance and law enforcement.

Mae Pruett is a "black-bag" crisis publicist at Mitnick & Associates, a firm that specializes in burying bad news for wealthy, powerful clients. Originally from small-town Missouri, Mae reinvented herself at Duke University and fought her way into Hollywood's brutal hierarchy. Her boss and mentor, Dan Hennigan, taught her the core principle of the trade: Truth does not matter; lies just need to give people permission to do what they already want to do. Mae proved her ruthlessness early when she helped cover up a young actor's overdose death.

Chris Tamburro is a 41-year-old former LA County sheriff's deputy turned private enforcer. Once a member of the corrupt Firearm Trace Task Force, Chris was caught skimming drugs and nearly killed himself before a lawyer named Stephen Acker offered him a deal: His charges would disappear if he made himself useful to powerful people. Now Chris carries out intimidation jobs on behalf of BlackGuard, LA's largest private security firm, numbing himself with stolen pills and suffering from phantom heart attacks.

The story ignites when Dan summons Mae to the Polo Lounge inside the Beverly Hills Hotel, staging the encounter to look like an affair by placing a hotel key card on the table. He reveals he has a secret, illegal scheme that could make them both rich but refuses to share details until the following night, giving her 24 hours to decide. As Mae fights through traffic to meet him, Dan is shot dead outside the hotel. Security cameras capture the killer, a young man named John Montez with a White Fence gang tattoo. The next day, sheriff's deputies chase Montez down and kill him in a livestreamed pursuit. The official story is a carjacking gone wrong, but the killer grabbed Dan's phone before fleeing, and Mae does not believe it.

BlackGuard hires Chris to investigate Dan's death. He obtains police files and discovers irregularities: Montez's gang affiliation does not match his home neighborhood, his record is thin, and the deputies cite an implausible source for locating him. Chris identifies the lead shooter, Deputy Marcus Woodcock, as a member of the Dead Game Boys, a secretive deputy clique that functions as a law enforcement gang. By infiltrating a celebration for the deputies, Chris learns that Woodcock's real source was Kevin Baldassare, a small-time Hollywood drug dealer Woodcock had flipped as a confidential informant.

Meanwhile, Mae discovers Dan had a secret girlfriend, a young fitness instructor and dancer named Katherine Sparks. Mae stalks Katherine online and attends her dance classes undercover. When Mae approaches Katherine outside the studio, she finds Chris in a nearby SUV, tailing Katherine's boyfriend Kevin as part of his own investigation. Their separate chains of evidence converge on the same household on Wonderland Avenue. Chris and Mae, former lovers who split because their inability to lie to each other made their dirty careers unbearable, agree to go rogue together. Chris files a dead-end report with Acker to kill the official investigation.

During surveillance, Chris spots a visibly pregnant teenager being brought to the house. They identify her as Nevaeh Green, a 14-year-old aspiring actress from Oklahoma registered with ItGirl, a teen-talent casting agency. Mae visits Hannah Heard, a former child star from the tween show As If!, who confirms that Eric Algar, the show's creator, hosted "soda pop" parties where he and other powerful men sexually abused child actors. ItGirl's founder, Carol Goodman, organized these events. Mae's friend Sarah, a producer, confirms that Algar's industry power has waned, making him a viable target.

Their theory crystallizes. Katherine's group discovered Nevaeh's pregnancy and planned to blackmail Algar, bringing in Dan as a partner. When Dan tried to cut them out, Kevin arranged Dan's murder using Montez, then tipped off trigger-happy deputies to ensure Montez would be silenced. Mae and Chris plan to take Nevaeh, obtain DNA proof of Algar's paternity, and sell the story through legitimate media.

They confront Loto, the Wonderland house's steroid dealer, who confirms their theory and names Algar. But after a suspicious phone call on Loto's burner, they return to the house and find all five residents murdered. Katherine and Janice DeWaal, another housemate, have been beaten to death, fellow resident Tony bludgeoned, Loto strangled, and Kevin found dead upstairs reaching for the gun Chris had stolen from his drawer days earlier. Chris is devastated, realizing someone retraced his investigative steps to find and massacre the household.

The conspiracy's scope expands when Chris discovers that billionaire venture capitalist Lawrence Kyser sits atop the entire network. Kyser owns stakes in BlackGuard, Mitnick & Associates, and other firms Mae and Chris call "the Beast." A photo shows Kyser with Carol Goodman. Mae learns from Ward Parker, a Democratic fundraiser and client facing arrest for drugging and assaulting men, that Algar provides children to Kyser to create bonds of shared complicity among powerful men. Parker warns that fighting Kyser will destroy her.

Mae contacts Nevaeh through an online video game called The Kingdom of Dreams. The girl agrees to come with Mae when her handler, Jesse Harutyunyan, tries to pass her to Armenian mob contacts. Mae and Chris hide Nevaeh at a friend's apartment, where she describes the escalation from innocent pool parties to rooms with vodka, pills, and powerful men.

The Beast strikes back. Chris is ambushed and beaten by the Dead Game Boys. Mae arranges for investigative journalist Marla Orozco to interview Nevaeh but aborts when a BlackGuard operative is spotted nearby. Mae realizes that Parker used police files she gave him to engineer a copycat bombing of a homeless encampment, killing her witness Panko while freeing a councilman's swing vote on a multi-billion-dollar real estate deal benefiting Kyser's network. Chris arrives at the bombing site, finds Panko dead, spots BlackGuard operative Matt Matilla watching from an alley, and rushes into the flames to rescue trapped people, severely burning his hands. Hannah Heard dies from an intentional overdose, another casualty of the system that destroyed her.

Helen Poirier, Cyrus Mitnick's right hand, offers Mae a deal: Return to the firm and let them control Nevaeh's story now that the Beast has decided Algar is expendable, and be richly rewarded. Mae visits Chris in the hospital, where he confesses his love and begs her to leave with him. Mae tells him she cannot stop; she tells him she is a bullet. She puts Nevaeh on a train home to Oklahoma with $50,000, telling the girl to build a safe life on her own terms.

That night, Mae drives to Algar's house and waits until BlackGuard's team arrives to kill him. She fires a stolen pistol into the air and calls his phone, warning him that Kyser sent the killers and that his only weapon is the secrets he holds about the powerful men who attended his parties. Algar escapes into the dark. Mae sends a mass email to reporters containing years of secrets and violations of her nondisclosure agreements, burning her career to the ground. Sitting on the beach in Venice, she watches the sunset, knowing she will not win the coming battle but resolving to fight. Algar, now a fugitive who knows who tried to kill him, is a torch she has thrown into the network of power. Most sparks will die out. Perhaps one will catch.