The Poor Boy's Game: A Novel

Raised by a criminal, trained to uphold the law, a woman confronts her past as her personal and professional lives fall apart in this suspense thriller.

When US Marshal Frannie Mullen gets one of her best friends shot during a routine apprehension, her career is over. Still reeling from the loss, Frannie is trying to sort out her feelings for Wyatt, the reformed outlaw who loves her, and to support her newly-sober sister, Mae, as she struggles with the fallout of their unstable, violent childhood.

Their father Patrick Mullen is a thug, a vicious enforcer for a corrupt Philadelphia union, and when he escapes from prison, bodies of ex-rivals and witnesses begin piling up. Now Frannie is suspected as an accomplice in his escape and targeted by shadowy killers from the Philadelphia underworld.

Unsure who to trust, drawing on the skills she's learned as a Marshal and her training as a boxer, Frannie is forced to fight to protect her shattered sister and Patrick's pregnant girlfriend from the most dangerous criminal she's ever faced—her own father.

The Poor Boy's Game is the most propulsive, riveting novel yet from crime fiction master Dennis Tafoya.

“At the center of Dennis Tafoya's powerful and poignant novel beats the mighty heart of his richly etched heroine, U.S. Marshal Frannie Mullen. With The Poor Boy's Game, Tafoya shows us he ranks with George Pelecanos and Dennis Lehane, illuminating the grimmest corners of his city, and telling tales filled with both darkness and immense beauty.” ―New York Times–bestselling author Megan Abbott

© 2025 Minotaur Books (Ebook): 9781250019547

Release date

Ebook: 14 March 2025