A thick and chewy first novel taking the cocaine wars from New Orleans to Miami and introducing a couple of stylishly corrupt heroes. Sheen Vicedomini is off the New Orleans Police Department, snorting a lot of coke with his girlfriend, Andrea, and looking for meaning in his life. Sheen was a brilliant cop, but he got too hot for the force to handle. Now he's doing an odd job for Profit, his cocaine supplier. Profit is a relentless trickster who does his best to keep Sheen dazzled as they tour San Francisco, spreading joy and destroying noses. Still, one taste of criminal life is enough for Sheen and he promises Andrea he'll go straight, but when she's killed by a hit-and-run driver, Sheen will do anything to avenge her. He knows the murder has to do with his refusal to get sucked into the drug trade; if he wants her killer, he'll have to deal drugs and fred the vanished Profit. Never quite sure whether Profit was friend or foe, Sheen gets in thick with the Cubans who control the coke world. His new life takes him from the bayous, where he eats fashionable food, to a boutique where he meets a new girl, ducking the law as long as lie can until he at last finds himself working for the Drug Enforcement Association alongside, of all people, Profit. Overlong and relentlessly brooding but with enough swampy intrigue to satisfy ultramodern tough-guy fans.