The Devil She Knows: A Novel

by Bill Loehfelm

An audacious thriller from a major new talent  Life isn’t panning out for Maureen Coughlin. At twenty-nine, the tough-skinned Staten Island native’s only excitement comes from . . . well, not much. A fresh pack of American Spirits, maybe, or a discreet dash of coke before work. If something doesn’t change soon, she’ll end up a “lifer” at the Narrows, the faux-swank bar where she works one long night after another. But just like the island, the Narrows has its seamy side. After work one night, Maureen walks in on a tryst between her co-worker Dennis and Frank Sebastian, a silver-haired politico. When Sebastian demands her silence, Maureen is more than happy to forget what she’s seen—until Dennis turns up dead on the train tracks the next morning. The murder sends Maureen careening out of her stultifying routine and into fast-deepening trouble. Soon she’s on the run through the seedy underbelly of the borough, desperate to stop Sebastian before Dennis’s fate becomes her own. With The Devil She Knows , Bill Loehfelm has written a pitch-black thriller in a fresh, compulsively readable voice, with pages that turn themselves. This is the real a breakout novel by a writer whom Publishers Weekly has praised for his “superb prose and psychological insights.”

336 pages, Hardcover

Published May 24, 2011

About the author

Praise for the Maureen Coughlin series:

“Not only has Loehfelm created the most compelling, complex patrol cop in the genre—part take-no-prisoners badass, part too-sensitive-for-the street rookie—he has also re-energized New Orleans as a setting for the best in crime fiction, going well beyond the clichés … —edgy, dangerous, but pulsing with life. Maureen Coughlin is as good as it gets.” - BOOKLIST

“After being warned about falling in love with the power of the job, [Maureen Coughlin] finds herself wrestling with ethical issues that fictional cops, especially fictional female ones, rarely talk about, leaving that stuff to real-life cops--and smart guys like Bill Loehfelm.” —The New York Times.

"Our heroine has both a strong will and a finely tuned moral compass… Loehfelm has created a wonderfully flawed heroine in Coughlin… [Loehfelm’s] love for New Orleans is evident in his descriptions, from the greasy spoon the cops favor for gumbo to the rollicking frat bars of the French Quarter. Dialogue doesn't get much snappier, and the complicated plot ... is deftly handled. This series just keeps getting better." —Kirkus

Bill is the author of seven novels, most recently, THE DEVIL'S MUSE, the new Maureen Coughlin novel, from Sarah Crichton Books/FSG.

Bill's other novels are the stand-alone thrillers, FRESH KILLS (2008), and BLOODROOT (2009).


Loehfelm lives in New Orleans with his wife, the writer AC Lambeth, where in addition to writing he plays drums in a band and practices yoga, both with mixed results.