“…the next best thing to finding a new and unsuspected Raymond Chandler phantasmagoria.” – The New Yorker
San Francisco police detective Joe Goodey has all the luck.
Bad.
Not only does he accidentally shoot an elderly janitor, but his perforated victim turns out to be the mayor’s cousin. This costs Joe his badge and earns him an invitation to get out of town immediately–or else. But no sooner has Joe done so, than he is jerked back, issued a private eye’s license and ordered to find out who iced Tina D’Óro–North Beach’s topless go-go queen and the mayor’s ‘special friend,’ who left a red-hot diary capable of torpedoing hizzoner’s political career.
Given less than no time to work miracles, Joe sets off on a ricochet course with more bumps than the hilly streets of San Francisco. A bizarre cast that includes Chinatown’s premier junior hoodlums, a mad plastic surgeon, Tina’s wannabe successor, a retired mobster with paternal longings and worse keeps Joe hopping on an assignment that constantly threatens to become Mission Impossible.
With time running out and his adversaries closing in, this hard-boiled mystery might wind up being Joe Goodey’s last.
