immoral origins, book blast book review

Immoral Origins. New York City, 1978. Disco and mobsters, gritty streets, needle parks and graffiti on the subways. Jake Barnum lives in Hell’s Kitchen, a petty thief selling hot coats with his buddy Maggs to make ends to meet and help his sick kid brother Emile. At a Halloween party downtown, he meets a woman with a Marilyn Monroe mask that works for an organization called The Desire Card, an underground operation promising its exclusive clients “Any Wish Fulfilled for the Right Price.” Its members all wear lifelike masks of old movie stars to remain incognito, and Jake is instantly taken with its leader, Clark Gable, who becomes a pseudo father but is a sociopath at heart. Jake has always thought of himself as Robin Hood, stealing from the rich to give to the poor (i.e. himself), so he becomes Errol Flynn. As he falls in with the Card and in love with Marilyn, the money rolls in but the wishes become more and more suspect, even leading to murder.

The first book in the Desire Card series, Immoral Origins is a pulse-pounding thriller that asks how far we will shed our morals to help the ones we love and an origin story that will pick up in the present time with its sequel Prey No More, once Gable has taken his deceptive organization to an elite, international status. The books all following those indebted to this sinister organization, where the actual price is the cost of one’s soul.

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