The secrets of a group of childhood friends unravel in this thriller by Edgar Award winner S. J. Rozan. Absent Friends captures a time and place unlike any other, as it winds through the wounded streets of New York and Staten Island...and into a maze of old crimes, damaged lives, and heartbreaking revelations.With the twin towers of Manhattan shimmering in the distance, a small group of friends grows up on Staten Island, amid families and flirtations, dreams and fears. Jimmy. Markie. Vicky. Sally. Tom. Jack. Marian. Their roots are deep, their friendships strong, and their futures bright - until one shattering night that changes everything. Two of the friends will die young. The others are left to pick up the pieces in the shadow of a past that still echoes with hopes and regrets. And one - Jimmy - a firefighter - will die a hero twenty years later when the towers fall.Like the hub of the wheel, Jimmy had always been at the center of everything: of heroic acts and powerful friendships, of teenage crushes and media attention. But for those who knew him, Jimmy's death is not just an occasion for mourning. A hard-bitten journalist is hinting at a dark side to Jimmy's brilliant life. And when that journalist dies a mysterious death, the hunt for the truth intensifies, rattling Jimmy's friends - from the woman who loved him to a man who was born on the opposite side of the law, from a youth who idolized him to a lawyer whose own life is being destroyed by it all.Now a young woman reporter is prying into Jimmy's past - and that disastrous night long ago. As the story of that night begins to unwind, as a wounded city staggers back to its feet, a tangle of secret relationships and personal demons is exposed - until the truth erupts with stunning force. Read Less