Troublemaker - Joseph Hansen

'After forty years, Hammett has a worthy successor' The Times

Rick Wendell never made an enemy in his life, but he died all the same; and Larry Johns was found standing over him with the gun in his hand still smoking.

But Dave Brandstetter, who doesn't share the police's prejudice about Wendell's lifestyle, can't see it as an open-and-shut case. What was Johns' motive? What happened to the cash Wendell withdrew that day? As he asks the questions no one wants to hear, he comes to realise the danger of assumptions - particularly where love and money are involved.

Troublemaker is the third Dave Brandstetter novel - one of the best fictional PIs in the business, and one of the first ever gay ones. Joseph Hansen's groundbreaking novels follow Brandstetter as he investigates cases in which motives are murky, passions run high, and nothing is ever as simple as it looks. Set in 1970s and 80s California, the series is a fascinating portrait of a time and a place, with mysteries to match Chandler and Macdonald.