Colton Ward is the ultimate heist artist who rips off other heist artists. Hey, it’s not really stealing if you’re stealing from other crooks, right? Banks. Casinos. Warehouses. Cargo ships. From Davos to Rome, Bangkok to the Isle of Man, Miami to the Twin Cities, Colton and his brother Denny carry out a succession of dangerous scores. Until their luck runs out. Colton’s pinched by the FBI and faced with a choice: go to prison or work for the world-weary Agent Hoskins, who heads up a unit that specializes in robberies exceeding one million dollars. Hoskins is targeting a notorious crime boss, Magnuson, the kingpin of a Nordic gang called the Vikes, who are readying a casino heist. To take down Magnuson, Hoskins needs Colton to embed himself within the gang as part of a high-stakes sting operation. If Colton is going to make it out of this seemingly impossible predicament alive, he'll have to do what he does best: beat people at their own game.
Click the fullscreen icon (far right) for an enhanced reading experience
BENJAMIN PERCY is the author of six novels – most recently The Unfamiliar Garden (William Morrow) – three story collections, and a book of essays. He writes Wolverine, X-Force and Ghost Rider for Marvel Comics. He is currently adapting Urban Cowboy into a series for Paramount Plus and he co-wrote the film Summering (a selection of the 2022 Sundance Film Festival). His fiction and nonfiction have been published in Esquire (where he is a contributing editor), GQ, Time, Outside, Men's Journal, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Paris Review. His honors include the Whiting Award, the Plimpton Prize, two Pushcart Prizes, an NEA fellowship, the iHeartRadio Award for Best Scripted Podcast, and inclusion in Best American Short Stories and Best American Comics. Learn more about him at www.benjaminpercy.com
MICHAEL GAYDOS has worked in the world of the illustrated word and graphic novel for nearly 30 years. His list of credits include work for Marvel, DC, Random House, Dark Horse, Image, IDW, NBC, White Wolf and Onyx Path among others. With writer Brian Michael Bendis, he is co-creator of Jessica Jones for Marvel, who has her own Disney+ series, and Pearl for Jinxworld. Michael's fine art work has also been the subject of a number of solo exhibitions and his art is in private collections worldwide. In 2015, at Galerie Ardulik in Paris, Michael had a solo exhibition of his original art from both Alias and Jessica Jones.
Ben Percy was born to write noir. American Criminal is steeped in the elements of classic hardboiled fiction, but also manages to feel of the moment—pulsing with the power and tempo of a runaway train. This one’s got it all—seedy settings, nasty characters, and a conflicted protagonist you can’t help but root for. If you like dark tales that show you the underbelly of our world, you’ll devour American Criminal in a sitting, just like I did.
