The blue death

the long version

For generations the Freyls have ruled Springfield, Illinois, capital of a state of great lakes and rivers. Now convicted killer David Marion threatens their invincibility, and he threatens it from within their own ranks. In prison, his savage fury kept him at the top of the hierarchy, but he needed those bars. Without them, he’s spiraling out of control. Water: it’s blue gold, and the price on world markets is soaring. When Springfield gets a new mayor, this mostly comfortable, well-to-do community finds its supply under threat, not only from corporations out for the money and the life-and-death power that come with global control but from a disease that appears from nowhere, that nobody can identify and nobody can treat. None of these things interests David Marion, not even blue gold, at least not until his own past surfaces and he finds himself caught between multinational leviathans at war over America’s heartland. (from the back cover)