San Francisco, 1935. x Green. She absolutely hated the colour green with a passion. Yet everywhere she turned at the funeral, she saw green. Green wreaths, green buttonholes, green hats. Green for Ireland. Ironically, her late husband, Jack 'Piggy' Malone, wasn't even Irish. You had to go back generations to trace that connection. No, Piggy was as American as apple pie. He had loved watching Pop Warner's Stanford Cardinal...

San Francisco, 1936. The lights were taking forever to change, and Phoenix Malone cursed in her native French. It had been one of those nights when it seemed that everything was against her. Finally, the traffic began to move and the private eye, not dick, came to a halt outside the nondescript building shrouded in darkness. She got out of her car. A Derby Bentley with a three-and-a-half-litre engine, widely regarded as t...

San Francisco, 1936. "Umm, umm, umm!" "That's it, big boy. Screw me good, baby." "Umm, umm, umm!" "Wow, you're the best, I'm creaming here." Norma Bennett, a stunning socialite who had been educated at the University of Berkley, was beneath the sweating, blubbery Herman Weber as he heaved in and out between her legs with wheezing breath. Naked, in just her black silk stockings, the tousle-haired blonde sank back into the...

San Francisco. 1937. Phoenix Malone rang the doorbell of the lavish hotel suite of Madam Haversham, and she smiled at the uniformed maid who ushered her in. The graceful female detective scanned the room with the party already in full swing. She had been hired for that evening to protect the exclusive and expensive furs that the successful Haversham hoped to sell to her prospective buyers. Based in St. Louis, the fifty-ye...