Echoes of a Killing tells the gripping story of Sam, a teenager whose regimented life plunges into chaos after witnessing his family's grisly murders in 1980s New York City. Inconsolable, relentlessly pugnacious, drug-addicted, and green-Mohawked, he disappears into the Lower East Side's vicious hardcore punk scene. Finally facing his demons, he opens up to Stiggy, a sage pizzeria owner who convinces him he'll be dead without radical changes. Sam soon agrees to visit Stiggy's friend Lucho in Nicaragua, a sweltering, war-torn land of shark-filled lakes and jungle-covered volcanoes, where his accumulated street smarts face their harshest test. Ted Gogoll's debut novel provokes the reader, forcing them off the sidelines into material they don't want to think about. Murder, mayhem, abandoned street kids, drink, drugs, self-exile, hustled women-Echoes of a Killing will produce visceral reactions.