Wet Debt

Pat Gallegher's back...in the 1930s, in this new hardboiled classic from Richard Helms, author of the critically acclaimed Juicy Watusi.When construction workers unearth a body buried in a concrete floor next to Holliday's, jazz cornet player and knight errant Pat Gallegher's boss Shorty worries that delays may keep him from finishing the work by his buyer's move-in date. He hires Gallegher to investigate what appears to be a seventy-year-old murder. What Gallegher doesn't know, however, is that a killing that took place during the Great Depression is deviously entwined with his own more recent past. By delving into the mystery, he will uncover modern corruption of massive proportions and place himself in harm's way when the Anolli crime family decides to have him killed. With the assistance of Scat Boudreaux, Gallegher has only hours to uncover a major scandal in New Orleans government, solve the seventy-year-old murder of Scott Everidge, avoid the ire of a suspicious police detective, and try to stay alive in the process Join Pat Gallegher for another French Quarter tale of cool jazz and hot knuckles-and-know-how action Richard Helms' Pat Gallegher stories have won or been finalists for the PWA Shamus Award, ITW Thriller Award, SMFS Derringer Award, and the MRI Macavity Award.