Martin McDonough is a private detective whose investigations are usually successful because he knows how to get the low-down from his copper friends-a formula that works for a long time, but not forever. This noir mystery novel follows him from 1930s St. Paul, where a corrupt police force creates a haven for trigger-happy gangsters, to post-World War II San Francisco, where the jazz scene and the local mob uneasily coexist. In McDonough's world people are getting shot all time, but not by him... if he can help it. Trouble is, it's hard to be nice to the kind of rats he keeps running into.