COUNTING TO INFINITY

A macho San Francisco p.i. quips his way in and out of trouble.

Chicago lawyer Max Lansdale sends beefy Ralph Battle to Jake Diamond’s office to make him an offer he can’t refuse: visit the Windy City or risk the lives of his dishy ex-wife Sally and his smart-mouthed secretary Darlene. Max, who’s run through every other shamus in Frisco, including Jake’s late mentor Jimmy Pigeon, wants Jake to find Harry Chandler, a private eye who supposedly died six years ago in a shootout with the cops but was recently sighted by California gumshoe Stan Riddle. As Max tells it, Chandler killed his mob-connected brother Randolph. The real story, of course, is somewhat different, its truth locked in the memory of the elusive Joe Clams, now gone to ground while Jake tails leads as far away as Mexico. A couple of shamuses die, poor Sally is blown away, and Jake’s sidelined by a telephone bomb. And it’s up to Jake’s connected pals Russo and Romano, along with Boyle, the cop who caught the original case, and sassy Darlene to execute a complex sting that will leave Max seriously short of millions and on the outs with his mama, still a power in a major crime family.

More Runyon than Hammett, with bullets racing wisecracks, the best courtesy of Darlene: “If they can send a man to the moon, why can’t they send them all there?”