Bad Chemistry

Bad Chemistry poses an unsettling question: How much do we really know about the people we love–or about ourselves?

Kate Theodorus used to be a cop in Chicago. Eager to escape the ugliness and violence of police work, she moved to Washington, D.C., to create a new life for herself as a social worker. There she married Joel Baker, a successful entrepreneur whose edgy nonconformism–so different form the conservatism of her overprotective family of Greek cops–seemed to mesh perfectly with her new conception of herself. Three years later, on a snowy November night, Joel leaves the house to pick up some groceries. He never returns. Kate embarks on a search for her husband–and for the truth about the parts of his life that he has hidden from her. When the police unearth evidence connecting Joel to illegal drug trafficking and a murdered biochemist, Kate finds herself thrust back into the familiar world of clues, surveillance, and guns that she thought she had left behind. But this time, she’s operating outside the law she was sworn to enforce.

In Bad Chemistry, literary prizewinner Gary Krist has created a taut story of suspense, a charged tale of a woman’s struggle to resolve conflicts within her marriage and within herself. As the story races to its intense conclusion, Kate must face the disturbing fact that her journey has taken her to places no one would ever want to go.