South on Pacific Coast Highway - Gary Paul Corcoran - Bog

The first in a series of throwback crime novels, inspired by the Phillip Marlowe's and Sam Spades of the author's youth, Michael Devlin, the jaded protagonist and private detective of South On Pacific Coast Highway is himself a throwback private detective, preferring brains over gadgetry as he operates a one-man shop out of the sleepy little beach town of Laurel Lagoon. Slumming his way among the sometimes seedy, sometimes tony but always alluring venues of the Southern California coastline, Michael doggedly attempts to solve four murders, free a wrongly imprisoned friend and wrest spiritual enlightenment from a handful of better forgotten dreams. He has one clue to guide him, the final cryptic words of a dying man. "My wife Audrey, she knows the..." That leads Michael on a chase to find Audrey, her mane of long red hair a talisman to the woman Michael once loved. Add for a backdrop two pain in the ass Feds, a hardnosed cop, a billionaire online gambling mogul, a couple of nasty boys from south of the border, a Russian thug named Boris, a fortune teller, along with a miniature poodle named Butch and you have the ingredients for a haunting love story and a searing portrait of life along the Southern California coast.