Part of Series
Dan Fortune, the iconic private detective who operates out of New York’s bohemian Chelsea district, has just taken on a baffling case. It should’ve been an ordinary business transaction, but Leslie Carter – Fortune’s friend and a retired belly dancer – asks for help. It’s time for her new husband to pay the lease on a parking garage they own, but her husband can’t find anyone to take the money. A mammoth corporation owns the property now, and no one there will see him or talk with him about it. It’s 1975, and the country is sliding toward recession. Already on a financial cliff, the Carters will lose everything if they can’t hold onto the lease. When Fortune goes out to handle the matter, he finds himself the victim of a strange runaround, too. But his ends in murder. From Manhattan’s executive towers to the raucous saloons and bordellos of Hoboken, Fortune is caught up in the lives of men so powerful they can order murder with a nod, and of twisted criminals who openly attack him to stop his probing. There are women, too, some greedy, some gentle, who conceal private nightmares behind smooth smiles. Someone is hiding the secret that has driven an unlikely killer to murder, and no matter what, Fortune intends to uncover him – or her. “A gripping story.” – The Charlotte Observer “A master of crime fiction.” – Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine “He is an admirable stylist, a master of mood and effect.” – New York Times A “satisfyingly intricate mystery. ... Action and intrigue are nicely mixed.” – Publishers Weekly
Authors
Michael Collins was a Pseudonym of Dennis Lynds (1924–2005), a renowned author of mystery fiction. Raised in New York City, he earned a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart during World War II, before returning to New York to become a magazine editor. He published his first book, a war novel called Combat Soldier, in 1962, before moving to California to write for television. Two years later Collins published the Edgar Award–winning Act of Fear (1967), which introduced his best-known character: the one-armed private detective Dan Fortune. The Fortune series would last for more than a dozen novels, spanning three decades, and is credited with marking a more politically aware era in private-eye fiction. Besides the Fortune novels, the incredibly prolific Collins wrote science fiction, literary fiction, and several other mystery series. He died in Santa Barbara in 2005.
