Chapter 1

Maverick hero Ben Malone, is back in another action-packed, thrilling adventure, this time as a Los Angeles private eye. Amid his adjustment from LAPD detective to running his own private investigations agency, a strikingly beautiful blonde carrying a bundle of cash pays a visit to Malone's office with a somewhat curious problem-she witnessed a murder but for personal reasons can't go to the police to report what she saw. Empathetic with her delicate situation, Malone agrees to take on the unusual case for a private detective-finding, identifying, and bringing to the attention of the LAPD, the murderers so that they justice can take its course without involving his client. All in all, in the beginning, the case seems innocuous enough and an easy money assignment, that is until things start to unravel. There are three more connected murders before Malone's investigation even gets started. From there, like an out of control roller coaster, things go downhill fast and from bad to worse. Malone learns that the string of murders is mob-connected. The man believed behind them is a well-connected, heavy hitter, a vicious mob boss in the Los Angeles' Ukrainian criminal underworld who will stop at nothing to eliminate Malone's client. In the initial confrontation with the Ukrainian gangster, Malone is stunned to learn that his love interest, feisty psychiatrist Sara Bernstein is caught in the crosshairs, having been abducted while attending a conference in San Francisco. She is held hostage by the mobster as leverage to force Malone to betray the whereabouts of his client. He also discovers that everything may not be as it first seemed with his attractive client. She may be up to her pretty ears in a little criminal behavior of her own. Malone races against time, first to rescue Bernstein, and then to sort the innocent from the guilty in time to solve what rapidly evolves into a complicated web of deceit and criminal wrongdoing where it seems fair is foul, and foul is fair.