'You must watch your back when someone you trust steps behind you.'

How much - or how little - does it take to make a man kill?

Hugh Freyl is invincible, scion of the richest family in Springfield, Illinois, and the much-loved, most respected lawyer in the city. That he is blind only enhances his reputation for truth and integrity: justice should be blind. And yet late one night, in the library of his law firm, he is beaten to death.

There is only one obvious suspect: David Marion, a convicted killer from the wrong side of the tracks. Hugh himself secured David's release from South Hams State Prison, a brutal maximum security penitentiary. David has never seemed grateful.

But nothing in Springfield - except a dead body - is as it seems.

The Freyls are almost too anxious to send David to death row. Hugh's successor is certainly too pleased to be head of the firm. David's desperate attempts to discover the truth - or is it to cover up his guilt? - lead him beyond displays of family grief and power into a world of ruthless political ambition and financial manipulation where even the best reputations hide deceit. David must fight with the only weapons he knows: the criminal skills he learned in prison and the savage fury of a hunted man.

Bleedout unravels with startling reversals and visceral detail to deliver a stunningly tense, psychological tour de force from award-winning author Joan Brady.