Publisher's Synopsis
A simple case gets murderously complicated when "Nameless," Bill Pronzini's seasoned private-eye, exposes a nasty scam that involves junior account executive Jay Cohalan, his unhappy wife, and a mistress with a serious drug problem. It's the kind of case "Nameless" likes, because bleedersthe blackmailers, extortionists, small-time grifters, and other opportunists who prey on the weak and gullibletop his list of worthless human parasites. So there's nothing he enjoys more than putting another one or two of them out of commission and returning the $75,000 in blackmail cash to its rightful owner. "Nameless," though, cannot so easily close his Cohalan filenot when he finds his client face down in the middle of a four-poster bed with a bloody, powder-scorched hole behind the right ear. And only by a hair's breadth does "Nameless" himself escape a similar cold-blooded fate. His mind and gut wrenched by his brush with death, "Nameless" embarks on a relentless hunt for his unknown assailant in San Francisco's shadowy underworld. There he encounters bleeders of every ilk before he finds his quarryand confronts his own demonsin a climax as powerful as it is shocking and unexpected.
