At 30 years old, Sean is the new Press Secretary for the mayor of a major metropolitan city. He is a meek, boyish former seminary student who lacks gravitas and doesn't command a lot of respect with his staff. In the absence of the increasingly reclusive and eccentric Mayor Keeth, Sean is thrown into the spotlight, suddenly becoming the face of the administration during an election year. A wave of brutal murders is sweeping the city and baffling police while Sean knows exactly who they are looking for: a 19 year old girl named Morgan Bishop who has been missing from her suburban hometown for weeks, presumed to be dead. While Sean struggles to ignore what he hears about Morgan's horrifying actions and tries to convince himself that their love is real, he routinely issues the same basic statement on behalf of City Hall whenever another dead body is found: No new information. Agents Provocateurs is a new kind of noir novel seething with paranoia, tension and surrealism. This second installment of Jeremy Hurd's Saint Bethany series is a transgressive study of maturity, virtue, and romance. Under extreme self-imposed pressure that continually tests the limits of his meager capabilities, Sean is forced to hastily work through all of his private, shameful issues while very much in the public eye. jeremyhurd.com