The Detective

The Detective is the twentieth novel written by Matthew Reilly, which follows the Autistic private detective Sam Speedman as he delves into a mystery spanning over a century.

Synopsis[]

A centuries-old cold case. A unique private detective. A Matthew Reilly thriller like no other.

For 150 years, women have been going missing. And all of the investigators who went in search of them - from 1877 to the present day - have disappeared, too. Now Sam Speedman, a most unique private detective, is on the case. Brilliant, direct and disarming, Sam is ... different. He's not your average private detective. But then again, this isn't your average case. For not even he will be prepared for what he will find.

Set in the darkest corners of the American South, tapping into hot-button issues that simmer beneath the surface of the modern United States, this is Matthew Reilly writing faster and bolder than ever before, bringing you a detective thriller like you've never read before.

Summary[]

In the southwest of Louisiana, three teenage boys scout the swollen waters south of Victorville in the aftermath of a hurricane for a house that floated away in the flood. Upon locating it near the mouth of Dead Man's Creek, the boys also spot a crucified doll in the water, but upon bringing it aboard their boat, they are horrified to discover a dead baby girl inside. As the body is transferred to the Louisiana Bureau of Investigations, the infant's DNA is uploaded to their database, and soon the results send out an alert to Houston-based private detective Sam Speedman.

Speedman - an Autistic man with PI licenses in both Texas and Louisiana - is surprised by the alert, which he set up by hacking into law enforcement DNA labs, as the dead infant is the daughter of LaToya Martyn, a prostitute who has been missing for seven years. Speedman has been investigating the disappearance - as well as three other prostitutes working under the same pimp - and uncovered a pattern of four sex workers of African-American lineage going missing across the southern States roughly every 25 to 30 years since 1877, as well as the subsequent vanishings of the investigators soon after. From the last two sequences, Speedman has noted two anomalies; first, from the 1988 disappearances, former Army investigator Bill Brewster, investigated for five years until vanishing as a warrant was issued for his apparent possession of child pornography. The second anomaly is that during the 2018 investigation, Speedman's mentor, Art Hillerman, who was hired to look for another of the missing girls, also vanished, though his eyes were later sent to the girl's parents.

Heading into Louisiana in his Winnebago, Speedman first heads to the mortuary in Lake Charles where the infant has been examined, allowed in surreptitiously by Rodney Lowdon, a morgue attendant who owes the private investigator favours. Before investigators from the LBI arrive, Lowdon reports that the child was actually stillborn and that there is no DNA match for the father in the criminal database, then shows Speedman a crudely drawn image on the cross, which resembling a trident-like tree, an image the PI recognises.

Proceeding on to Victorville, Speedman enters the Acheron River in his kayak and ventures to the location where the infant was found, where he is threatened by Eli Gage, a stereotypical homeless hick redneck. Sherriff Hank Thompson and some of his deputies, along with Special Agent Audrey Mills of the FBI's Victim Services Division, arrive and diffuse the tension, then question Speedman on his presence. As Gage denies any knowledge of the dead infant, Mills takes Speedman aside while the Sherriff secures the scene. Speedman deduces Mills isn't there officially, as VSD agents only investigate when human trafficking is involved, to which she admits she isn't. A former friend and colleague, Harriet White, died in a suspicious crash near the town while investigating the disappearance of her cousin - one of the 2018 victims - and the report of the dead infant near where it happened has garnered Mills' personal interest. Believing he can trust her more than the local authorities, Speedman discloses that he has seen the image on the crucifix before, inviting her to tag along with him to the Louisiana State Penitentiary.

Along the way, Speedman notices he is being followed, and has his intern back in Houston, Heidi Spunkmeyer, run the vehicle's plate; the owner is former Army special forces operative Deek "the Hammer" Hammonds, who now co-owns a private security company known as Southern Security Systems. At the prison, Speedman requests to see Cyrus Barbin, a death-row inmate from a distinguished old-money family lineage convicted of hunting down and killing homeless black men. Having previously met the PI due to him deducing a literary reference no one else caught while Speedman was studying to earn his doctorate, Barbin agrees to see him now. When Speedman brings up the image and the baby, Barbin quickly deduces where it happened, and states that "they" will kill them now. Intrigued and without nothing else to lose, Barbin provides some information; the image of a lynching tree known as the Tree of Fear, "they" refers to something known as the empire, and the timing of LaToya's disappearance coincided with a party hosted by someone referred to as "Bubba". After a few other cryptic hints, Burbin refuses to say any more, leaving Speedman and Mills to speed time researching what the killer told them.

Looking into the land containing Dead Man's Creek, Speedman discovers the creek begins in the property of the wealthy Kingman Corporation, headed by Theodore "Tad" Kingman, one of the wealthiest men in Louisiana. Looking into articles on the Kingman family, Speedman finds one mentioning an association with the Fisher family in Florida, who were mentioned in a report from 1877 as having hired the four missing prostitutes of that era right before they disappeared. Furthermore, Speedman finds that the missing PI Brewster had tried to sue to Kingmans, though the case details are sealed. Finally, Speedman looks into Gage, finding that he was convicted of child molestation, though this makes Speedman less certain that he was involved in the disappearances of LaToya and the other grown women. When he meets with Mills, the FBI agent notes that one location Burbin mentioned is now known under a different name and owned by the Fishers, and another, an "old priests graveyard", likely refers to an island in the Delacroix swamps near New Orleans owned by the [[Catholic Church (Sam Speedman Series}|Catholic Church]]. Agreeing that they are prepared to risk angering both old-money Southern families and the Church, Speedman and Mills decide to find where exactly the doll the infant was in floated down from in Dead Man's Creek, and to speak to Gage again.

As they drive to Victorville, Speedman works to engage with Mills in conversation, mentioning his failed application to the FBI, his work to overcome his difficulties caused by Austism, and being raised by foster parents when his mother died. Though Mills is amused by him, she is also taken aback when he - by simply stating it as a fact - comments about women marrying in their 30s when they think they've found "the one" after she brings up her marriage and recent divorce. The pair stop in at the Kingman estate, where preparations are beginning for the marriage of Kingman's second-son Beau with Texan heiress Misty Dearborn. Though an SSS bodyguard, Mary Beth halts them, matriarch Clara Kingman allows them to speak to her husband. Kingman agrees to let them investigate the Creek, assigning Hammonds, his head of security, to escort them.

Hammonds doesn't accompany them far, leaving them to start trudging up Dead Man's Creek alone. Speedman and Mills soon find an abandoned spud barge with a shack on it in the mud, and upon opening one of the domed fuel tanks, Speedman is shocked to find an alive - albeit starved and unconscious - LaToya. Gage confronts them, claiming to have cleansed LaToya before attempting to shoot Speedman, though Mills fires first, allowing Speedman to finish him when the old man tries to raise his shotgun again. After they report in, Martyn is airlifted to Houston for medical treatment, while the Kingman men and Hammonds observe. Later, Speedman goes to LaToya's room at Houston Methodist, where she is placed in a medically-induced coma while treatment begins, and her parents thank the detective for finding her.

Six days later, while resuming his previous investigation, Speedman is contacted by Mills, who has been invited to FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. to transfer to their Counterintelligence division. She also mentions that Gage's DNA, in addition to proving he was the infant's father, was also found on White's clothing, implying he murdered her too. Though Speedman thinks things are being wrapped up a bit too neatly, and there remains the other missing women of the 2018 disappearances and the investigators unaccounted for, Mills suggests he take the win. Soon, Speedman is also contacted by the FBI, who offer him a place in their next intake class, having apparently reconsidered his previous application despite his failure of the personality test. Speedman then learns that LaToya is dead, having had a bad reaction to the nutrient drip and suffered refeeding syndrome, though her parents reassure him that they at least got to see her one last time.

Speedman soon realises something is amiss; as a convicted pedophile, Gage's DNA would have been in the criminal database, yet no match to him was made when the lab ran the initial tests. Upon trying to contact Lowdon, the PI learns the morgue attendants has recently died of an opioid overdose. Suspicious, he hacks into the DNA database and looks at the history of the infant's results, seeing that someone updated it after Lowdon's death to make it match Gage, thus someone is trying to make the truth go away. While waiting to speak to Gage's sister Eleanor, Speedman decides to ask a contact in the New Orleans's District Court to get access to the Brewster v Kingman case. Soon he gets the case notes, finding that Brewster had accused Kingman of using convict workers at his petrochemical plants and keeping them on false charges, though the judge dismissed the case. When he speaks to Eleanor, Speedman is as surprised as she is that she has been paid out $25,000 for her brother's death, and upon looking into the law practise overseeing it, he realises the firm also does work for the Kingmans.

Calling Mills and explaining his findings, Speedman suggests that Gage was used to take the fall in exchange for the payout to his sister, and that someone is influencing the FBI to give them their dream jobs to get them far away from Victorville. Speedman proceeds to contact a fellow PI in Florida, Lincoln "Linc" Lewis, to ask him to look into the Florida location Mills identified from Burbin's rant that was once known as Slaver's Key, and asks Heidi to investigate the old priests graveyard, known as the Bishop's estate. Speedman begins to follow Clara around, however, while observing a gathering from the road, Tad Jr and Beau notice him and order him to leave. In the process, the PI notices that Beau called his older brother "Bubba".

While driving away, Speedman's car is t-boned by Hammonds' pickup, rendering him unconscious. When Speedman awakens, he is confronted by the Kingmans, as well as Hammonds and Mary Beth. Clara alone speaks, feigning concern and claiming kids caused the crash. Her demeanor quickly turns cold, as, in addition to revealing they know where he lives, Clara warns that Speedman has found his missing girl and to accept his moment of heroism, and to leave her family alone. As she proudly claims that her family are of a high society that remains noble and godly apart from the rest of the world, she advises the PI that he might not walk away from his next "accident". As he prepares to find a way home, Heidi call to inform Speedman that she has found 14 bodies in a mausoleum at the estate. Despite Clara's threat, Speedman has been pissed off by her dismissal of LaToya as a "little negro girl", and decides to continue his investigation.

Rendezvousing with Heidi and her local trucker friend Brenda in the Delacroix swamps, Speedman is led to the LaSelle mausoleum that Burbin mentioned, which is also adorned with the image of the Tree of Death. Inside, Heidi shows the bodies she found inside an open cistern for the old mansion; though most are old in clothed in rags, one is more recent, which Speedman identifies as his missing mentor Hillerman. Noting that he and the others had all been manacled and drowned, Speedman realises the original 13 bodies are the "baker's dozen collection" owned by the former New Orleans bishop Burbin mentioned seeing in his youth. Further examination is cut short as the trio are confronted by operatives from SSS. Their leader is ordered by Hammonds to kill and dispose of them, though thanks to preparations Speedman made before entering the mausoleum, he is able to disable most of them and their airboats during a chase, allowing him, Heidi and Brenda to flee.

While hiding out, Speedman contacts Mills to report his findings, prompting her to meet with him. Speedman is then contacted by Linc via FaceTime, but it is Hammonds making the call. On the screen, Linc has been chained and partially mauled by an alligator. For ignoring Clara's warning, Hammond declares that is not only coming after Speedman, but also Mills, Heidi, and Speedman's former foster parents. Before hanging up, Hammonds executes Linc. Considering his options, while Speedman wants to speak with Burbin again, as well as a man he believes may be a still-alive Brewster, he decides to focus on investigating Slaver's Key to see what got Linc killed, first warning Heidi and his foster parents about the danger.

Arriving is what is modernly called Gulf Key, Speedman and Mills find the place where Linc's phone last transmitted from, an abandoned alligator farm known as Gatorville. From the spot where he died, Speedman begins tracking Linc's key ring via a digital key; in his final moments, Linc gave Speedman a coded message to look for it. Picking it at the entrance to the Fisher family's phosphate mine, the pair proceed inside, and find an old slave prison at the bottom. Hearing Hammonds and his men approach in search of them, Speedman and Mills hide, during which the PI find numerous skeletal remains. As Hammonds' squad leaves, Speedman theorises that the bodies belonged to convict slaves, and pieces of trash they've found in the mine indicates that modern slavery may be occurring. As they head out, Hammonds and his squad capture the pair, and after he takes a moment to beat up Speedman, the SSS leader leaves a pair of his men to finish him off while the rest take Mills away, planning on abusing and then killing her. Luckily, Speedman manages to kill his would-be executioners, then rescues Mills before she can be assaulted. After they retreat and recover, Speedman is seduced by Mills, who has been charmed by his bravery and kindness.

For their next move, Speedman and Mills locate Brewster in Morgan City, having been living in hiding since being trumped up on false charges. Brewster tells them how he tried to sue Kingman in order to publicly expose his crimes, though the judge was on his payroll and suppressed the case. The Kingmans, along with several other old blueblood families that includes the Dearbons and Fishers, are part of a cabal informally known as the Secret Empire, which Brewster confirms is conducting slavery in the modern day, which prior to kidnappings began through convict leasing and the destruction of the workers' documents. The Secret Empire has maintained secrecy of this atrocity through its longstanding ties, money, and fear, and the only thing that threatens them is not people, but the weather. As Brewster witnessed while surveilling the Dearbons in 1993, the Kingmans evacuated their slaves to Texas when the Tropical Storm Arlene of that year hit, so that they wouldn't be noticed by outside observers in subsequent cleanups; the Kingmans used a cattle transport truck escorted by authorities from both States to the Dearbons estate.

When a hit squad enters Brewster's backup apartment next door, Brewster uses a detector to discover a bug hidden inside Speedman's watch, placed there while he was unconscious following Hammonds' collision, and which explains how the Empire's forces had found Speedman so soon after he arrived in both Delacroix and Slaver's Key (his overnight stays in motels located next to high voltage substations being what kept him safe in between those events). Since it isn't giving his precise location - hence why the squad is in the apartment next door - Speedman removes the bug and uses one of his drones to shift it onto a passing train, luring the hit squad away. Speedman apologises to Brewster for inadvertently leading them to him; before he flees, Brewster wishes him luck in finishing the case.

Returning to visit Barbin, Speeman and Mills relay what they've learned, with the death row inmate clarifying some details, including an estimate of 4,000 accumulated slaves in the Empire, that their operations began immediately after the end of the Civil War, and that they have installed sympathetic judges, senators and law enforcement officers. The missing women, Burbin implies, are not taken to be breeding slaves as Brewster suspected, and that Speedman and Mills would have found the Kingmans slaves on their property had they not encountered Gage on Dead Man's Creek first. Speedman then notices that the guards are gone, and several cells in the accompanying cell block are opening. Realising the Empire is intending to have them killed by the prisoners, Speedman and Mills hurry to secure themselves in the airlock between the two cell blocks. Though a few prisoners harass them, the pair are able to lay them out, and then set off the fire alarm so that the fire department arrives and rescues them. Afterward, Speedman deduces the kidnapped women were all hired for bachelor parties hosted when a Kingsman was set to be married, only to be enslaved as their property immediately after; given the timing, LaToya was taken for Tad Jr's party, and the stillborn girl was his daughter. He resolves to investigate the Kingsman estate, opting to wait a few days for the rehearsal dinner of Beau and Misty when the families are busy celebrating.

Once Speedman and Mills have set up contingencies, they infiltrate the estate, finding the spot where LaToya set her baby adrift on the crucifix down the creek in the hope that someone would discover it and realise she was still alive (the image she'd drawn herself since her dyslexia meant she couldn't write an accompanying message). The pair find a glen on the property containing the actual Tree of Death at the entrance to a dungeon containing around 50 enslaved men, women and children. As they exit the dungeon, they are forced to hide as the wedding attendees arrive and begin hosting a cakewalk in its original intention, with the Empire's women dressing up and showing off enslaved women for their amusement as part of the wedding celebration. After the procession moves back to the mansion, Speedman and Mills move to begin their plan to rescue the slaves, with Speedman setting off explosions at the nearby Kingman petrochemical plant. The Kingmans respond quickly, having their slaves loaded onto a truck to be transported to the Dearbon estate as a precaution. As the truck is escorted away by the local authorities, Speedman and Mills move to follow, only for the former to be confronted by Tad Jr and Beau.

Tad Jr confirms being the father of LaToya's children, but before he can shoot the PI, Mills rams an SUV towards them, pinning and crushing Beau's legs. Mills is then accosted by Mary Beth, and in the subsequent melee Speedman fatally bangs Tad Jr's head onto an exposed nail on a fencepost, and Mills uses Tad Jr's dropped pistol to kill Mary Beth. Despite their injuries, the pair set off after the convoy. Once the escort cars are taken out, Speedman takes control of the transport truck, while a coal hopper truck driven by Heidi and Brenda pull alongside and takes the load of slaves onboard. Once they're all across, Speedman continues toward the awaiting Texas escort, only for Hammonds to appear. Undeterred, Speedman manages to handcuff the SSS leader to the door handle, then drives the truck off of the bridge, leaving Hammonds to drown while he swims away using scuba gear to avoid being noticed by the Empire's Texan operatives. Once he emerges from the river a mile away, Speedman heads to the Four Seasons Hotel of Houston - which from a concurrent investigation he knows is being surveilled by the FBI - and causes a huge spectacle once the truck with the rescued slaves arrives.

The FBI team - not on the Empire's payroll - quickly rallies and launches an investigation, with the Kingmans, Dearbons and others from the Secret Empire being arrested and their slaving operations exposed, allowing over five-and-a-half thousand slaves to be freed. Among the ones Speedman and Mills rescued is a four-year-old daughter of LaToya, who is left with her grandparents, and Nia Carter, one of the girls kidnapped along with LaToya, who explains how they were taken and that LaToya made a few attempts at escaping until they started starving her and she became pregnant with Kecia (by the time of her second pregnancy, LaToya was already malnourished, hence the stillbirth). Reinvestigations into her death reveals that Mary Beth disguised herself as a nurse and intentionally triggered LaToya's fatal reaction, but inquiries into Lowdon's death cannot confirm foul play. As their contacts in the law and government agencies are exposed and arrested, the Secret Empire's members all get lengthy prison sentences, though Clara chooses to hang herself before she is sent to prison.

In the aftermath, Brewster, now exonerated, is able to live freely again, and accepts Speedman's offer to join him and a newly-qualified Heidi as a partner at his detective agency, the firm now becoming known as The Detectives. Speedman asks Mills - now promoted and working in the FBI's Dallas office - on a date, and as she walks in, Speedman decides to try something other than his regular meal.

Characters[]

Investigators[]

Dr Sam Speedman
Special Agent Audrey Mills
Heidi Spunkmeyer
PI Bill Brewster
PI Arthur "Art" Hillerman (mentioned only)
PI Lincoln "Linc" Lewis

Houston Characters[]

Dr Eric Cartright
Millie-Mae
Darla
Sequoia
Charlene
Honor
Darnell Martyn
Kecia Martyn
Dr Lucy
Andrej Bartkowiak (mentioned only)
Melita Bartkowiak (mentioned only)

The Secret Empire[]

Theodore "Tad" Kingman Sr
Clara Kingman
Tad Kingman Jr
Beau Kingman
Henry Dearborn
Misty Dearborn
Montgomery Fisher (mentioned only)

Southern Security Systems[]

Deek "the Hammer" Hammonds
Mary Beth
Roke
Clete
Milo

Victims of the Empire[]

LaToya Martyn
Olympia Cole (mentioned only)
Renata Long (mentioned only)
Nia Carter
Carlotta Stone (mentioned only)
Grace Mitchell (mentioned only)
Kecia

Victorville[]

Sherriff Hank Thompson
Deputy Tommy Pruitt
Eli Gage
Bobby Joe Bowman
Lee Pruitt
Will Schuman

Angola Prison[]

Officer Higgins
Cyrus Barbin
Curtis Gardner
Dwayne Falcomb Jr

Others[]

Tyrone Brown (mentioned only)
Rodney Lowdon
Harriet White (mentioned only)
Willy Cox
Brenda
Leroy Hertzenberger
Amelia Kittson
Special Agent Michael McCarthy (mentioned only)
Mohammed Fasar
General Perry (mentioned only)
Union Captain George McShane (mentioned only)
Cree Fisher (mentioned only)
Wallace Fisher III (mentioned only)

Animals[]

American Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis)

Locations[]

United States of America
- Texas
  - Houston
    - Sam Speedman's Office
    - Upper Kirby Hooters
    - The Four Seasons Hotel
- Louisiana
  - Lake Charles
    - Bureau of Investigations Morgue
  - Victorville
    - Kingman Estate
      - Mansion
      - Tree of Fear and Long Stage
      - Slave Dungeon
    - Dead Man's Creek
    - Acheron River
  - Angola
    - Louisiana State Penitentiary (Angola)
  - New Orleans
  - Delacroix
    - Bishop's Estate
  - Morgan City
    - Bill Brewster's Hideout
- Florida
  - Tallahassee (mentioned only)
  - Fisher Family Salt and Phosphate Mine
    - Slave Prison
  - Gulf Key / Slaver's Key
  - Gatorville
- Maryland
  - Washington, D.C. (mentioned only)
    - J. Edgar Hoover Building (mentioned only)
Africa (mentioned only)

Gallery[]

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Trivia[]

Reilly confirmed that he is already in the midst of writing a sequel to The Detective, with a planned release in 2026.
Sam Speedman is the first male protagonist of Reilly's stories to be introduced since Raf of Troll Mountain.