Big Money, Small Town: A Ryan Tapia Novel

by Thomas E. Ricks

In this gripping and dynamic thriller, former FBI agent Ryan Tapia finds himself ensnared in the complex interplay of power, politics, environmental degradation, and resistance at a cobalt mine in Maine.

While building his career as a private investigator in the Maine countryside, Ryan Tapia takes the case of Dr. Ed Healey, a local physician suffering from an acute case of cobalt poisoning. A mine has recently opened in Pushaw county, extracting the valuable minerals needed for batteries in electronic devices and electric cars. But a deadly “Fan” of poison is seeping out . . .

But there are dark legacies in Pushaw that go back to the Salem witch trials and the community on nearby Witch Island, where the Thornfoot family is turning the tables and exploiting the vagaries of modern life for their own ends.

On the cusp of finding his personal happiness once more, Tapia is caught in the middle of this vortex of manipulation and money, desperation and deceit. Neighbors turn on one another and the people of Pushaw risk becoming as deadly to one another as the industrial poison simmering beneath the surface.

In Big Money, Small Town, Thomas Ricks has crafted a nuanced and enthralling novel that challenges our understandings of money and influence in every facet of modern life.

288 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication June 2, 2026

About the author

Thomas Edwin "Tom" Ricks (born September 25, 1955) is an American journalist who writes on defense topics. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winning former reporter for the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. He writes a blog at ForeignPolicy.com and is a member of the Center for a New American Security, a defense policy think tank.

He lectures widely to the military and is a member of Harvard University's Senior Advisory Council on the Project on U.S. Civil-Military Relations. He has reported on military activities in Somalia, Haiti, Korea, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Kuwait, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Ricks is author of five books: the bestselling Fiasco: The American Military Adventure In Iraq (2006), its follow-up The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008 (2009), The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today (2012), the novel A Soldier's Duty (2001), and Making the Corps (1997) (from wikipedia)