An Elvis Cole and Joe Pike Novel (abridged)

The day starts like any other in LA. The sun burns hot as the Santa Ana winds blow ash from mountain fires to coat the glittering city. But for Private Investigator Joe Pike, the city will never be the same again. His ex-lover, Karen Garcia, is dead, brutally murdered with a gun shot to the head. 

Elvis Cole has to face up to a crime that takes place far too near home. His girlfriend's only child has been kidnapped, and it seems that something from his own past has come back to haunt him.

Six months after nearly losing everything to the men who kidnapped his girlfriend's ten-year-old son, Elvis Cole is slowly coming back to life - when he receives an ominous phone call from the LAPD. An unidentified body has been found in a seedy Los Angeles motel room and Elvis is called to the scene. Finally, Elvis is told that before the man died, he said he was Elvis's father.

Joe Pike owes a bad man a big favour. And the favor is to protect the life of Larkin Conner Barkley, a spoiled rich girl who happens to be a federal witness in a case against the mob. When Pike and the girl come under intense fire, he hatches a plan: disappear into the anonymous underbelly of Los Angeles, turn the table, and hunt down the hunters.

Threatened by a raging brush fire, the residents of Laurel Canyon are being forced from their homes. Police and fire department personnel rush from door to door to evacuate the inhabitants, but find something in one of the houses none of them expected: The days-old corpse of a middle-aged recluse who apparently committed suicide. Then comes an even more horrible discovery. Clutched in his lap is a photo album containing photographs of seven young women who have been murdered.

Elvis Cole is hired to find a woman who’s disappeared, a seemingly ordinary case, until he learns the missing woman is an explosives expert and worked for a Defense Department contractor. Meanwhile, LAPD K-9 Officer Scott James and his patrol dog, Maggie, track a fugitive to a house filled with explosives - and a dead body. As the two cases intertwine, they all find themselves up against shadowy arms dealers and corrupt officials, and the very woman they promised to save may be the cause of their own deaths.