It's like an old-time gangster movie: a speeding car, a blazing
gun...and suddenly a guy walking down the street without a care in the
world is lying in the gutter without a head on his shoulders. But who
pulled the high-powered trigger that turned Sy Kramer from a blackmailer
into a chalk outline? Was it the politician's wife with a pornographic
past? The soda-pop tycoon desperate to keep a business-busting bungle
bottled up? Or was it whoever was paying Kramer a small fortune to hide
what must've been one very big bad? It falls to detectives Steve Carella
and Cotton Hawes of the 87th Precinct to pound the pavement of the city
and beat the bushes of the backwoods for the suspect with the best
motive, the most blistering weapon, and the biggest set of brass ones.
En route, they'll meet pretty ladies and petty lowlifes, great white
hunters and gray flannel ad execs, and, when the going gets rough, maybe
even their match. It's all in several long days'--and even longer
nights'--work for the guys who make their living behind the badge, and
under the gun.