Hearing the scared voice of his secretary on a late-night phone call, actor-turned private eye Saxon figures he is in for a case with too many favors and no hard cash. But he is only half-right, because whoever took a shot at his secretary’s husband was really aiming at big bucks—in the person of Buck Weldon, one of America’s wealthiest and most famous mystery writers, whose enemy list is longer than some of his stories. Saxon quickly finds himself on Southern California’s dark side of drugs, violence, and fraud—and, naturally, murder.

“A definite winner… one of those books you know you’re going to love after reading the first paragraph… There’s not a false move in this book… Roberts is off to a strong start as a mystery writer.” (Scripps Howard News Service)

Excerpt: My Ficus benjamina was dying. There wasn’t much I could do about it except sit there listening to Stan Getz records and watch it die. I had watered it, fed it plant food, given it lots of light and even talked to it, but nothing seemed to help. I couldn’t bring myself to throw it in the garbage, not while there was still some life left. The plant was not unlike my just-ended relationship. We’d known it was dying and tried all sorts of things to save it, but we didn’t throw it away until it was completely dead. And now she was gone. Leila was gone, and I was watching my ficus die.

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Publication Year: 1987

Pages: 165