Meet Jake
Diamond, a San Francisco PI who is more over-easy than hard-boiled, needs lots
of help but is afraid to ask, has a very difficult time keeping his neckties
stain free, guzzles bourbon and antacid with equal ineffectiveness, and can't
get enough of Dickens and Dumas.
As much as he
could use the work, Jake is not anxious to take on the case of a missing
husband. Jake has learned from experience that being a missing husband is not
necessarily a bad thing to be, particularly if the husband in question is a
murder suspect.
Jake's friend
and mentor, Jimmy Pigeon, who inspired Jake to trade his Screen Actors' Guild
card for a private investigator's license, had taught Diamond well. "Whenever
I'm asked to locate a missing spouse," Jimmy said, "the words no, but thanks
for asking always come to mind." Jake is all set to live by those words
until he discovers that the murder victim was Jimmy Pigeon himself.
Determined to
discover the identity of Pigeon's killer, Diamond scrambles between Los Angeles
and San Francisco following leads that range from weak to delusional. With the
help of his trusty and sarcastic assistant, Darlene Roman, compulsive gambler
Vinnie Stradivarius, and Italian-American 'businessman' Joey Russo; Jake slowly
uncovers the motives behind the death of Jimmy Pigeon. Along the way, Jake
trips over the bodies of a few other hapless victims, dodges mob hit men and
over-zealous police detectives, and finds the case swimming with characters
from his past.
Important places
San Francisco (1,595)Counties
San Francisco (1,690)Regions
California (7,435)Countries
United States (64,950)Other geographical areas
The Bay Area (313)Coast Ranges (USA) (388)
Northern California (3,440)
West Coast (USA) (5,046)