In the small town of La Caleta, Dave Brandstetter investigates the murder of a very unpopular cop.
When Ben Orton’s head is found bludgeoned by a heavy flower pot, the people of La Caleta are stunned—not because their police chief has been murdered, but because no one thought to do it sooner. A bruising, violent man, Ben had a commitment to order that did not always take the law into account. But as insurance investigator Dave Brandstetter is about to find out, the corruption in Ben’s police force did not die with him.
By the time Dave arrives in the fading fishing town, a young activist has already been arrested for the murder. Only Dave seems to care that the evidence against the accused is laughably thin. As the people of La Caleta try their best to thwart his investigation, Dave must do whatever it takes to catch Ben’s killer.
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“Hansen is the most exciting and effective writer of the classic private-eye novel working today.”
— Los Angeles Times, praise for the author
“Characters with real stuffing in them.”
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Joseph Hansen (1923–2004) was the author of more than twenty-five novels and was a renowned short-story writer. The winner of the 1992 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, he was also the author of A Smile in His Lifetime, Living Upstairs, Job’s Year, and Bohannon’s Country.
Keith Szarabajka has appeared in many films, including The Dark Knight, Missing, and A Perfect World, and on such television shows as The Equalizer, Angel, Cold Case, Golden Years, and Profit. Szarabajka has also appeared in several episodes of Selected Shorts for National Public Radio. He won the 2001 Audie Award for Unabridged Fiction for his reading of Tom Robbins’s Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates and has won several Earphones Awards.