Lay Saints

Lay Saints, by Counterfeit Kings author Adam Connell, takes readers on a sinister ride through a twisted cityscape where hidden telepaths ply their trade, reading or altering the thoughts of the "hacks" around them, for the right price.

Lay Saints opens with Calder, a man whose special abilities nearly drove him insane, until he learned how to shut out the static of other people's thoughts and make money from reading minds.

He continues to avoid people as much as he can but eventually his nomadic existence takes him to New York, for the first time. In the city, one gang of black-market telepaths figures out who and what he is. They force him to help them pull off a big-ticket job, swaying the vote of a powerful politician. Backing out isn't an option.

There's another gang, secretly operating out of an upscale nightclub, working the other side of this job, and soon Calder is caught in a lethal game of manipulation and shifting alliances. His romance with a dancer named Tamm strengthens his resolve to leave the city and its telepaths far behind, but neither side in this war will just allow the couple to go. Everyone's got a use for Calder, and no one wants to see him cross over to the competition.

Connell's gritty and provocative tale is filled with fascinating characters, all seeking to get an edge over each other in the city that never sleeps where no good deed goes unpunished.