A bungled hand-off leaves professional go-between Philip St. Ives suspected of murder in this thriller that inspired the Charles Bronson movie St. Ives.

It's three in the morning, and Philip St. Ives has come to the all-night Laundromat to meet a thief. His laundry bag isn't carrying dirty clothing—it's stuffed with $90,000 cash. But he finds his contact, Bobby Boykins, in no state to talk. Bobby has been beaten, strangled, and stuffed behind a washing machine; Philip is inspecting the corpse when the police find him. Standing in a Laundromat with a dead body and a sack full of cash, Philip learns, is a good way to get arrested.

St. Ives is a go-between—a mediator between thieves and their victims—and he came to meet Bobby for the sake of a rich man who has lost his diary. If Philip can escape the Tenth Precinct, Bobby's killer will come for him next.