Deviant Behavior: A Novel of Sex, Drugs, Fatherhood, and Crystal Skulls

“[A] dark D. C. tale with … an addictive neo-noir sensibility” by the award-winning journalist and New York Times–bestselling author of Tattoos & Tequila (Publishers Weekly).

With a pretty wife, a new baby, and a job reporting for the Washington Herald, Jonathan Seede is the picture of urban respectability. But a secret freelance project is drawing him into places most people never dare to go. Just ten blocks from the White House, on the notorious Fourteenth Street strip, a war is raging over drugs, prostitution, and other deviant behaviors—and Seede is on the front lines.

When his family abruptly leaves him, Seede embarks on a journey into his own dark urges. Along the way, he encounters pimps and hustlers, an accidental hooker, an honest cop, a storefront prophet who deals marijuana, a beautiful teenage runaway, a crack-addicted music legend, an A-list gay activist, and a diminutive billionaire who is searching for the answers to life’s greatest questions in a crystal skull.

“Mike Sager’s keen, journalistic eye and unique voice transfer to fiction with highly entertaining results. Deviant Behavior is a street-level, symphonic portrait of an American city. ” —George Pelecanos, author of The Night Gardener