Suffering from CIP (Congenital Insensitivity to Pain)—an extremely rare disorder from birth that disenables the perception of pain—Kara Johnson always knew she’d die young and violently. It didn’t matter who delivered the final blow, she would deserve it; her years spent running drugs and spreading violence would guarantee it. But death doesn’t follow expectation: when her girlfriend Celina sacrifices herself to save Kara’s life, Kara is left grieving and adrift, just like her signature dark sketches of half-dead birds. She doesn’t know why she’s alive until the DEA shows up in her hideout and offers her a choice: go to prison or turn informant to lure out the last of the drug trafficking ring that murdered Celina.

In a direct follow-up to her USA Today bestseller To Catch a Storm, Mindy Mejia delves into survivor’s guilt and fleshes out the lives continued by the ones left behind in A World of Hurt. Grounded in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic at the convergence of the Black Lives Matter and Defund the Police protests, A World of Hurt is part of Mejia’s Iowa Mysteries series, set in the same universe as To Catch a Storm, yet acts like a standalone focusing wholly on a new unlikely investigative duo.