Faces of the Gone by Brad Parks won the Shamus Award for Best First Novel and the Nero Award for Best American Mystery--it is the first book to receive both awards. Named to the year's best mystery debuts by the Chicago Sun-Times and South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
Investigative reporter Carter Ross finds himself with gruesome front-page news: four bodies in a vacant lot, each with a single bullet hole in the back of the head. In a haste to calm residents, local police leak a story to Carter's colleagues at the Newark Eagle-Examiner, calling the murders revenge for a bar stickup. But while Carter may not come from the streets, he knows a few things about Newark's ghettos. And he knows the story the police are pushing doesn't make sense.