A pair of cops hunt the killer of the most beautiful hooker on Chicago's North Side. On a blistering Chicago afternoon, the Cubs are winning and Abe Lieberman is waiting to meet a prostitute. This mild-mannered old police detective still has a few tricks up his sleeves - and one of them is named Estralda Valdez. One of the city's loveliest women of the night, she is Lieberman's most prized confidential informant, and she needs help with a psychotic john. Though they suspect she's only paranoid, Lieberman and his partner, Bill Hanrahan, agree to watch Valdez's back. But Hanrahan's weakness for drinking will sabotage their plans. Hanrahan gets soused watching Valdez's front door, and by the time he realizes she is in danger, it's already too late. To save the partnership and find the hooker's killer, Lieberman and Hanrahan will have to make a journey into the darkest heart of the Windy City. About the Author: Stuart M. Kaminsky (1934-2009) was one of the most prolific crime fiction authors of the last four decades. Born in Chicago, he spent his youth immersed in pulp fiction and classic cinema - two forms of popular entertainment which he would make his life's work. After college and a stint in the army, Kaminsky wrote film criticism and biographies of the great actors and directors of Hollywood's Golden Age. In 1977, when a planned biography of Charlton Heston fell through, Kaminsky wrote Bullet for a Star, his first Toby Peters novel, beginning a fiction career that would last the rest of his life. Kaminsky penned twenty-four novels starring the detective, whom he described as the anti-Philip Marlowe. In 1981's Death of a Dissident, Kaminsky debuted Moscow police detective Porfiry Rostnikov, whose stories were praised for their accurate depiction of Soviet life. His other two series starred Abe Lieberman, a hardened Chicago cop, and Lew Fonseca, a process server. In all, Kaminsky wrote more than sixty novels. He died in St. Louis in 2009. Review quote:Beautifully rendered. . . . Kaminsky is extraordinarily attuned to the domestic minutiae of his detectives' lives. - Chicago Tribune. Kaminksy's books just keep getting better. . . . An outstanding story. - Booklist. A standout performance. . . . Nobody writing today can mix taut suspense with a sense of creeping mortality as shatteringly as Kaminsky. - Kirkus Reviews. For anyone with a taste for old Hollywood B-movie mysteries, Edgar winner Kaminsky offers plenty of nostalgic fun . . . The tone is light, the pace brisk, the tongue firmly in cheek. - Publishers Weekly. Marvelously entertaining. - Newsday. Makes the totally wacky possible . . . Peters [is] an unblemished delight. - Washington Post. The Ed McBain of Mother Russia. - Kirkus Reviews.
