IN NEW YORK, IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM NO ONE ELSE CAN SOLVE, YOU CALL LEONID McGILL Ex-boxer, hard drinker, in a business that trades in cash and favours, McGill's an old-school P.I. working a city that's got fancy all around him. When McGill is approached by a small-time office manager, he declines the case. He has better things to do than track down the man's long lost cousin, who is about to inherit millions. But then McGill's office is broken into, and his potential client is found dead. Soon, McGill finds himself drawn into the underbelly of an establishment family, and a Pandora's box of secrets and lies. Taking you from the moneyed haunts of Uptown to the shady corners of Downtown, Mosley is the Chandler of Obama's America, and one of the finest crime writers in the world.

Seven years ago, Zella Grisham was arrested for illegal possession of a firearm, assault with a deadly weapon, attempted murder, and grand theft. After two years of fruitless negotiations, Zella was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison, mainly because she refused to give up her accomplices in a $6.8 million heist from Rutgers Assurance Corp. But Zella had played no part in that heist. PI Leonid McGill had planted the evidence. All Zella had done was shoot her man, her cheating husband Harry Tangelo, when she'd caught him in bed with her best friend. That was a long time ago, and McGill has regrets. So he hires a hotshot attorney to set her free. Zella's big regret is that she tried to kill Tangelo. McGill agrees to track him down but the trail leads back to Rutgers Assurance, and the man who paid McGill to plant the evidence is found dead. As Zella is hounded and an attempt is made on McGill's life, the detective realises the case is more complicated than he had ever imagined - but can he live long enough to sort it out?

Leonid McGill's spent a lifetime building his reputation as a private investigator in New York. His seemingly infallible instincts and inside knowledge of the crime world make him the ideal man to help when Phillip "Catfish" Worry comes knocking. Catfish is a ninety-four-year-old Mississippi blues-man who needs Leonid's help with a simple task: deliver a letter revealing the black lineage of a wealthy heiress and her corrupt father. The opportunity to do a simple favor while shocking the prevailing elite is impossible for Leonid to resist. But when a famed and feared assassin puts out a hit on Catfish, Leonid has no choice but to confront the ghost of his own felonious past. Working to protect his client, and his own family, Leonid needs to reach the heiress on the eve of her wedding before her powerful father kills those who hold their family's secret. Joined by a team of young and tough aspiring investigators, Leonid must gain the trust of wary socialites, outsmart vengeful thugs, and, above all, serve the truth -- no matter the cost.

A mystery caller sends Leonid McGill to an uptown address 'just to check a girl's okay'. There's no explanation - just a name - Angelique - a reward, and the chilling knowledge that he's working for Rinaldo Alphonse, the most feared man in New York. What LT finds is a crime scene. A girl lies with her face blown off, her assassin felled by a knife. But the dead girl isn't the one LT was sent to find, and her killer's injuries don't make sense. The next day Alphonse comes calling: LT must find Angelique before the assassin's assassin tracks her down. Alphonse isn't the only one who wants a bit of LT's time - the NYPD, finding his appearance too convenient, think they can finally put away the thorn in their side. But why do so many people want a piece of the apparently normal, clean-living Angelique? And why is the mafia coming after McGill, linking his sons - shy Dmitri and streetwise Twill - to the escape of a sex trafficked Belarussian girl. As both plots career towards a thrilling finale, McGill must put his street know-how and book of lethal contacts to the test, while haunted by the re-appearance of a face from his crooked past and wife Katrina's continued infidelities (this time it's her son's best friend).

The economy has hit the PI business hard, and Leonid McGill is getting job offers only from the criminals he's worked so hard to leave behind. So how can he say no to the beautiful young woman who walks into his office with a stack of cash? She's an artist, she tells him, who's escaped poverty via marriage to a rich collector. A rich collector with two ex-wives whose deaths are shrouded in mystery. She says she fears for her life, and needs Leonid's help. Though Leonid knows better than to believe every word, this isn't a job he can afford to turn away. Meanwhile, Leonid's personal life grows ever more chequered: his favourite stepson, Twill, drops out of school for mysteriously lucrative pursuits; his wife takes a new lover, infuriating the old one and endangering the whole family; and Leonid's girlfriend, Aura, is back but intent on some serious conversations... Is the client at his door who she seems and - if his family's misadventures don't kill him first - will sorting out the woman's crooked tale bring Leonid straight to death's door?