The anonymous Nameless Detective encounters a blackmail plot and murder mystery at a conference of slightly disreputable old "pulp" writers.

"San Francisco, 1952. Detective Evander "Andy" Mills has started a new life for himself as a private detective--but his business hasn't exactly taken off. It turns out that word spreads fast when you have a bad reputation, and no one in the queer community trusts him enough to ask an ex-cop for help. When James, an old flame from the war who had mysteriously disappeared, arrives in his offices above the Ruby, Andy wants to kick him out. But the job...

Thirty-five years after Harmon Crane's suicide in a locked room, the Nameless Detective attempts to uncover the reasons behind the kingpin of pulp detective fiction's death, and by so doing, he enters into a deadly game.

Nameless may not like David Virden, but the case is simple enough: find his ex-wife, and they know where she is. Deliver some papers to her and it is is all done. But she refuses the papers, sends a message to Virden to never contact her again, and slams the door. His colleague, Tamara, tells Nameless that Virden threatens to sue, stops payment on his checks, and claims that the woman they located is not his wife. Then he disappears and his fiancee...

In San Francisco, a policeman with an unimpeachable record draws his revolver in open court and shoots the accused, on trial for abusing a daughter. Why? The policeman isn't talking and soon after being jailed he escapes. That is when his buddy, investigator John Marshall decides he must find him, if only to save him from himself. By the author of Flesh Wounds.

"Nikki Griffin, a private-investigator when she isn't running her small bookstore, is on a case. The matriarch of one of the wealthiest San Francisco families has been defrauded by a con-man, and her furious son enlists Nikki to find the money. And find the con-man. Nikki isn't a fan of men who hurt women. Her secret mission, born of revenge and trauma, is to do everything she can to remove women from dangerous situations-and to punish the men responsible....