Ally, an aspiring actress, is about to give up on getting her big break. But then, after another disappointing audition, a charismatic scene partner says he has a fun gig for her. Soon, Ally is making easy money working for a guerrilla-marketing outfit called The Set Up. Now she’s getting lots of practice pretending to be someone she’s not—but each job seems more suspicious than the last.
Marshall is a washed-up journalist, teaching a summer class at the university and struggling to keep his students (and himself) focused on his planned lessons. Someone has been leaving copies of his ... Read More
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Ally, an aspiring actress, is about to give up on getting her big break. But then, after another disappointing audition, a charismatic scene partner says he has a fun gig for her. Soon, Ally is making easy money working for a guerrilla-marketing outfit called The Set Up. Now she’s getting lots of practice pretending to be someone she’s not—but each job seems more suspicious than the last.
Marshall is a washed-up journalist, teaching a summer class at the university and struggling to keep his students (and himself) focused on his planned lessons. Someone has been leaving copies of his ... Read More
Ally, an aspiring actress, is about to give up on getting her big break. But then, after another disappointing audition, a charismatic scene partner says he has a fun gig for her. Soon, Ally is making easy money working for a guerrilla-marketing outfit called The Set Up. Now she’s getting lots of practice pretending to be someone she’s not—but each job seems more suspicious than the last.
Marshall is a washed-up journalist, teaching a summer class at the university and struggling to keep his students (and himself) focused on his planned lessons. Someone has been leaving copies of his old articles on his lectern every morning, forcing him to revisit the story of a decades-old tragedy and mistakes he’s made … both personal and professional.
Web, a quirky loner, has always been ready to pick up and go at a moment’s notice. In fact, he’s very good at not being noticed, at least not unless he wants to be. That’s been helpful in his years working for the Set Up, but the new hire’s questions are starting to make Web feel less confident about his work as a con man.
What is the Set Up, and who’s playing whom? The search for answers leads Ally, Web, and Marshall from the glitz of the Strip to the grit of Sin City’s strip-mall suburbs, and from an abandoned Unification compound to a deadly bar mitzvah. As their paths converge, this unlikely trio uncover the shadowy power dynamics and shifting personalities that shape a city.
"An unusual novel about contract killing in a world of technology and influencing." —Library Journal
"An M-80 of Vegas noir through an intersectional lens, THE SET UP delivers a roaring romp of deception, identity, desire, and double crosses. In a city built on spectacle, who's really pulling the strings? Wynn's fierce wit, consumptive characters, and keen sociological eye transform the glittering Strip into the ultimate trick mirror. A must-read, and one of the smartest and most fun thrillers I've read all year." —Margot Douaihy, bestselling author of SCORCHED GRACE and BLESSED WATER
"Set in the dystopic present of surveillance capitalism, The Set Up moves between an ordinary college classroom and the underbelly of Las Vegas, gradually peeling back the layers of a world where no one is who they appear to be, and nothing happens by chance. Somehow both pulse-pounding and cerebral, this is a stunning debut novel—at once an addictive, slow burn thriller, a prism refracting its light on the everyday, and a master class in sociology." –Grace M. Cho, author of National Book Award Finalist, Tastes Like War Chosen by Chicago Review of Books as a "Most Anticipated Book of 2025"
"The Set Up is an old-school crime noir in the best way, a captivating ride from start to finish. Following a series of struggling characters connected through their association in a shady guerrilla-marketing outfit known as The Set Up, Jon Wynn’s novel takes readers on a windy trip through the Strip to the strip-mall suburbs with plenty of shocks and twists to follow. We deserve more competent literary thrillers, and The Set Up more than delivers with a undeniable plot and sharp writing." — Michael Welch, Editor-In-Chief
"DEBUT Las Vegas is the stage and setting for this unsettling debut mystery by sociology professor Wynn (Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst; The Tour Guide: Walking and Talking New York). It takes place in and around Vegas’s offices, restaurant, and sidewalks—and finally, a fancy event space where college student Ally, a theater and journalism major, is dispatched to distract a wealthy developer attending his son’s bar mitzvah. Ally’s been doing this job for a week now. Her employer never calls, only texts, pays by electronic transfer. First it was product placement: posting a covert selfie, leaving a Vespa parked outside a restaurant. In Ally’s journalism class, she leaves a photocopy of her professor’s first big story on his desk: coverage of an old accidental death. This stirs doubts in his mind about what took place back then. Was it an accident, or was it murder? At the bar mitzvah, Ally sees a waitress switch drinks on the developer, who then dies of a heart attack. As this eerie novel inches forward, the professor unearths evidence of a murder 10 years earlier, while Ally uncovers a second murder today. Are they linked? What happens after is chilling, the more so because it’s so impersonal.
VERDICT An unusual novel about contract killing in a world of technology and influencing." - Library Journal
Author Bio
Jon Wynn is a professor and the department chair of sociology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He has written The Tour Guide: Walking and Talking New York and Music/City: American Festivals and Placemaking in Austin, Nashville, and Newport, and co-authored The City and the Hospital: The Paradox of Medically Overserved Communities. His work has also appeared in The Guardian, The Atlantic, Salon, The Washington Post, and other venues. The Set Up is his first novel.
Ally, an aspiring actress, is about to give up on getting her big break. But then, after another disappointing audition, a charismatic scene partner says he has a fun gig for her. Soon, Ally is making easy money working for a guerrilla-marketing outfit called The Set Up. Now she’s getting lots of practice pretending to be someone she’s not—but each job seems more suspicious than the last.
Marshall is a washed-up journalist, teaching a summer class at the university and struggling to keep his students (and himself) focused on his planned lessons. Someone has been leaving copies of his old articles on his lectern every morning, forcing him to revisit the story of a decades-old tragedy and mistakes he’s made … both personal and professional.
Web, a quirky loner, has always been ready to pick up and go at a moment’s notice. In fact, he’s very good at not being noticed, at least not unless he wants to be. That’s been helpful in his years working for the Set Up, but the new hire’s questions are starting to make Web feel less confident about his work as a con man.
What is the Set Up, and who’s playing whom? The search for answers leads Ally, Web, and Marshall from the glitz of the Strip to the grit of Sin City’s strip-mall suburbs, and from an abandoned Unification compound to a deadly bar mitzvah. As their paths converge, this unlikely trio uncover the shadowy power dynamics and shifting personalities that shape a city.
"An unusual novel about contract killing in a world of technology and influencing." —Library Journal
"An M-80 of Vegas noir through an intersectional lens, THE SET UP delivers a roaring romp of deception, identity, desire, and double crosses. In a city built on spectacle, who's really pulling the strings? Wynn's fierce wit, consumptive characters, and keen sociological eye transform the glittering Strip into the ultimate trick mirror. A must-read, and one of the smartest and most fun thrillers I've read all year." —Margot Douaihy, bestselling author of SCORCHED GRACE and BLESSED WATER
"Set in the dystopic present of surveillance capitalism, The Set Up moves between an ordinary college classroom and the underbelly of Las Vegas, gradually peeling back the layers of a world where no one is who they appear to be, and nothing happens by chance. Somehow both pulse-pounding and cerebral, this is a stunning debut novel—at once an addictive, slow burn thriller, a prism refracting its light on the everyday, and a master class in sociology." –Grace M. Cho, author of National Book Award Finalist, Tastes Like War Chosen by Chicago Review of Books as a "Most Anticipated Book of 2025"
"The Set Up is an old-school crime noir in the best way, a captivating ride from start to finish. Following a series of struggling characters connected through their association in a shady guerrilla-marketing outfit known as The Set Up, Jon Wynn’s novel takes readers on a windy trip through the Strip to the strip-mall suburbs with plenty of shocks and twists to follow. We deserve more competent literary thrillers, and The Set Up more than delivers with a undeniable plot and sharp writing." — Michael Welch, Editor-In-Chief
"DEBUT Las Vegas is the stage and setting for this unsettling debut mystery by sociology professor Wynn (Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst; The Tour Guide: Walking and Talking New York). It takes place in and around Vegas’s offices, restaurant, and sidewalks—and finally, a fancy event space where college student Ally, a theater and journalism major, is dispatched to distract a wealthy developer attending his son’s bar mitzvah. Ally’s been doing this job for a week now. Her employer never calls, only texts, pays by electronic transfer. First it was product placement: posting a covert selfie, leaving a Vespa parked outside a restaurant. In Ally’s journalism class, she leaves a photocopy of her professor’s first big story on his desk: coverage of an old accidental death. This stirs doubts in his mind about what took place back then. Was it an accident, or was it murder? At the bar mitzvah, Ally sees a waitress switch drinks on the developer, who then dies of a heart attack. As this eerie novel inches forward, the professor unearths evidence of a murder 10 years earlier, while Ally uncovers a second murder today. Are they linked? What happens after is chilling, the more so because it’s so impersonal.
VERDICT An unusual novel about contract killing in a world of technology and influencing." - Library Journal
Jon Wynn is a professor and the department chair of sociology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He has written The Tour Guide: Walking and Talking New York and Music/City: American Festivals and Placemaking in Austin, Nashville, and Newport, and co-authored The City and the Hospital: The Paradox of Medically Overserved Communities. His work has also appeared in The Guardian, The Atlantic, Salon, The Washington Post, and other venues. The Set Up is his first novel.
