Badlands is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2008 by Richard Montanari

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Montanari, Richard.
Badlands : a novel of suspense / Richard Montanari.
p. cm.
1. Police—Pennsylvania—Philadelphia—Fiction. 2. Homicide investigation—Fiction. 3. Philadelphia (Pa.)—Fiction. 4. Code and cipher stories. I. Title.

PS3563.05384B33  2008
813'.54—dc22    2008025607

www.ballantinebooks.com

eISBN: 978-0-345-50946-8

v3.0