Following his debut crime novel, The Dredge, Brendan Flaherty’s literary second novel set in Connecticut spotlights a soul-seeking family man who pursues the American Dream through a series of comic nightmares involving Zoom calls, rental houses, and a narcissistic con man’s plot to rob the dead, as he plays Middleman.
Middleman presents a picaresque, heartfelt, and unsettling account of an amateur heist gone wrong, the damning consequences of playing someone else’s game, and the human longing for both freedom and stability in a world of uncertainty.
Brendan Flaherty is from outside Hartford, Connecticut. He went to Washington University in St. Louis and received his MFA from Boston University. He lives with his wife and two sons. Middleman is his second novel, following his debut, The Dredge.