Books

1956, summer in the City of Angels. Los Angeles is hot, muggy and the smog is putting everyone on edge. Mickey, owner of the Paradise Club, known hangout for mobsters and politicians, has hired PI Hank Retzer to find his star singer. She’s been missing for four days and Hank knows it’s probably a lost cause, made harder by Mickey telling him what not to ask and where not to look. He should have suspected things weren’t kosher when he asked for his premium rate and bills changed hands, no questions asked. After several dead ends, a solid lead steers Hank onto a web of corruption and a sinister underworld where death is a business. Uncovering the criminal enterprise makes him a target with a price on his head. Can he find the missing singer before they cash him out?

PI Hank Retzer is hired to babysit his childhood hero, Amos Murray, the once-famous star of the Montana Law westerns. Keeping Amos out of trouble should be as simple as steering him away from the booze and the gambling tables. Instead, Amos drags Hank into conflict with both the police and the mob. When two people end up dead, Hank is left on his own to investigate and clear his hero's name.

It's the atomic age, the Cold War is turning hot, mushroom clouds sprout over the Nevada desert, and husbands and wives still cheat on each other. Hank Retzer is hired to catch a scientists's philandering husband in flagrante. But this simple case of infidelity is not all that it seems, and Hank finds himself, once again, running for his life, pursued by foreign and domestic agents. Can he uncover the mystery behind the missing secrets before he's caught?