PI Mike Shayne is down on his luck and up to his neck in trouble in a gritty crime thriller set in Miami's mobbed-up underworld.

Once, Mike Shayne could outdrink, outfight, and out-sleuth anyone. It's amazing what can happen in a few weeks. The once-famous private investigator is now infamous—for his out-of-control boozing and very public money troubles. His downward spiral started with the acquittal of a woman charged with first-degree murder on the basis of his evidence. And it's still going strong . . .

Drunk and disillusioned with his job, Shayne finds himself on St. Albans, a Caribbean island featuring a mob-run casino, surrounded by free-spirited women and with a loan shark on his trail. When trying to gamble his way out of debt doesn't work, he steals the winnings of a customer in the elevator. Unhappy with the negative publicity, a Mafia don gives Shayne one chance to make it up to him: stop his good friend, reporter Tim Rourke, from investigating the mob.

Just when Shayne thought he had nothing left to lose . . .

"The hard-drinking, hard-fisted, quick-thinking private eye!" —Dayton Journal-Herald