"The creepy guy across the street from my store was there again this morning, propping up the wall like it would fall down without him, and chain-smoking his way through a pack of Chesterfields. He was dressed the same as before, in a dark double-breasted suit, a black fedora, and Bogart's trench coat. If he wasn't a private investigator, he was certainly trying to look like one. That was one of the most annoying things about living in LA: everybody dressed like they were auditioning for the movie of their own life."

Los Angeles, 1946. Private detective John Dalton is missing. Rare book dealer and part-time pornographer Damien Hooke is dead. And now mobsters are coming after Dot Stone, a bookseller with a razor-sharp mind and a money problem, and she has no idea why. What starts out as a simple mystery quickly spirals into murder, kidnappings - and blackmail. With the help of street-smart cab driver Joy D'Amico and oil heiress Virginia Townsend, Dot needs to figure out why she is dangerously linked to Dalton and Hooke, and how to get the mobsters off her back before she joins the list of casualties.