The Conspirators

By David Carpenter

A briefcase stuffed with cocaine, cash, and a loaded pistol turns a quiet academic’s life into a high-stakes conspiracy of survival, betrayal, and impossible love.

It’s the summer of 1974. Literary post-doc Jarvis Parsons, living alone in a cottage outside Winnipeg, finds a briefcase that isn’t his. Inside are bricks of cocaine, a thick roll of cash, and a loaded pistol. He’s still staring at it when his ex-girlfriend Annie shows up—impulsive, restless, halfway into trouble before she even sees what he’s holding.

Things go downhill in a hurry. A violent confrontation leaves blood on the floor. Annie vanishes into the night, presumed dead by the police, who see Jarvis as their prime suspect. As a merciless drug kingpin and his goons start closing in, and a hitman known only as the Happy Man begins his hunt, Annie and Jarvis, rather than turn themselves in, go on the lam: west into the forests of British Columbia and then down to the American South. They never planned on being back in each other’s lives, but now they’re trying to stay ahead of men who kill for living. The money needs laundering, and so they come up with an unlikely plan: rare coins. It’s absurd, but it’s what they’ve got.

Old arguments don’t just vanish because someone wants you dead. Neither do old feelings. Moving from one cheap room to the next, Jarvis and Annie keep having to figure out whether they’re running from something or toward whatever’s left between them.

Blending taut suspense with sharp literary insight and a vivid 1970s counterculture backdrop, The Conspirators is a masterful literary thriller about ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances.

In 1974, plenty of people were trying to start over. These two just had more to lose than most.