Breakfall

One wrong decision. One death. One missing person. One clear suspect.

Mina Banksy, a 32-year-old crime writer and mother of a rambunctious three-year-old, is still reeling from a recent divorce and what she calls an "early midlife crisis" when two Chicago detectives show up at her door looking for her friend, Dylan. Or, more accurately, the van that she allowed him to register in her name, because Dylan, a friend from her former Jiu Jitsu gym, Open Guard, is a recently recovered addict and convicted felon. Turns out, according to the cops, Dylan is not so reformed after all: the van has been under some suspicion for criminal activities, and she may be in trouble for it. Flustered by the stressful meeting, calls Matthew, a married cop who she'd had an affair with six months earlier, causing a scandal at their close-knit gym as well as instigating her divorce. Matthew?who she believed was still in Arizona with his wife and daughter?lets it slip he's back in Chicago and separated from his wife, thus allowing them to restart their tumultuous sexual relationship.

When Mina tries to track down Dylan at the rehab where he lives, she finds him dead, the nature of his injuries making it clear that the murderer is someone well-versed in Jiu Jitsu. When Mina's ex-husband also turns up missing, every member of the gym, current and past, becomes a suspect, bringing to surface yet again the scandal of Mina's affair the previous summer. Turns out the detectives were right all along... all roads lead back to Mina Banksy.

Part unlikely romance and part murder mystery, set inside a subculture of martial arts, BREAKFALL is an exploration of sexual desire, motherhood, and marriage in modern times.