Max Allan Collins

Mike Hammer has been away from New York too long. Recuperating in Florida after a deadly mob shootout, the private eye learns that an old mentor on the New York police force has committed suicide. Hammer returns for the funeraland because he knows that Inspector Doolan would never have killed himself. But Manhattan in the 1970s no longer feels like home. Hammers lovely longtime partner, Velda, has disappeared after he broke it off for her own safety, and his office is shut down. When a woman is murdered practically on the funeral homes doorstep, Hammer is drawn into the hunt for a cache of Nazi diamonds that makes the Maltese Falcon seem like a knickknack, and for the mysterious beauty who had been close to Doolan in his final days. But drug racketeers, who had it in for the tough old police inspector, attract Hammers attention as well. Soon he is hobnobbing with coke-snorting celebrities at the notorious disco Club 52 and playing footsie with a sleek lady D.A., a modern female on the make for oldfashioned Hammer. Everything leads to a Mafia social club where Hammer and his .45 come calling, initiating the wildest showdown since Spillanes classic One Lonely Night . Recovering in Florida from wounds he sustained in a mob shootout, Mike Hammer is shocked by news that his old mentor and friend, Inspector Dooley, has committed suicide. Doubting that Dooley could really take his own life, Hammer returns to New York to attend the funeral, but is soon drawn into a bigger conspiracy when a woman is murdered near the interment. Soon, Hammer finds himself on the hunt for a cache of Nazi diamonds, the same treasure that may have cost Dooley his life Returning to 1970s New York to investigate an old friend's alleged suicide, Mike Hammer is drawn into a hunt for a cache of Nazi diamonds and a beautiful missing woman who had been close to the victim in his final days.