Max Freeman

Max Freeman's old life ended on a night that will haunt him forever. The night he killed a twelve-year-old child in self-defense in a Philadelphia shootout. The night he stopped being a cop. Now he lives a solitary existence on the edge of the Florida Everglades, where he answers to no one but the demons that eat away at his conscience. When he finds the corpse of a child beside an ancient river and another child goes missing, all eyes turn to Freeman.

Max is back, trawling the trailer parks and waterways of south Florida, where amid the gorgeous beaches and abundant foliage there lies a stunning range of brutality. After Max is hired to investigate a conspiracy involving fake claims to Medicare, he quickly realizes the scheme is much more dangerous than anyone assumed.

When a pregnant federal judge is abducted, Max Freeman pursues an eccentric gang deep into a hidden world he knows better than most: the shadowy waterways of the Florida Everglades. US district judge Diane Manchester has looked across the courtroom into the eyes of evil before. But today, as she presides over the extradition hearing of a notorious Colombian drug lord, she is also eight months pregnant. Her chair is uncomfortable, her robe is constrictive, and her due date is fast approaching.