When One Man Dies – Hill Nadell Literary Agency

Dave White
When One Man Dies
(Open Road, April 2025)

It’s been four years since Jackson Donne went from cop to private investigator, so he’s seen his share of trouble in New Brunswick, New Jersey. And he doesn’t like it when it hits too close to home—or, in this case, too close to the Olde Towne Tavern, Donne’s home-away-from-home. His drinking buddy, Gerry Figuroa, gets killed right outside the bar in a hit-and-run. Just when Donne is looking for a fresh start by returning to college at twenty-eight years old, he’s drawn back into the game. All this while investigating a suspected cheating husband.

Donne soon discovers that Gerry was not the man he thought he knew. Instead, he’s someone whose secrets will bring down a world of pain on his friends and relatives. And when Donne realizes that both of his cases have dangerous underworld connections, he’s about to be launched into a world of violence . . .

Praise for When One Man Dies

“[A] remarkable debut novel. . . . White manages the neat trick of respecting the genre’s traditions while daring to nudge it toward something new and unexpected.” —Laura Lippman, New York Times–bestselling author

“A terrific novel, a unique and artful blend of the PI and the Police Procedural in a plot as nicely tangled and sexually violent as a cat fight.” —James Crumley, Dashiell Hammett Award–winning author

“White has written a PI novel that is both traditional and fresh, one of the few new talents to join this much-plowed field with something interesting and original to say.” —Chicago Sun-Times

“Derringer Award–winner White’s engrossing, evocative debut novel will grab most readers from its opening sentences.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Dave White is the Derringer Award–winning author of six novels including the Jackson Donne series. His short story “Closure” won the Derringer Award for Best Short Mystery Story. His standalone thriller Witness to Death was named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He lives in New Jersey.