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In this intelligent, dark humored, anti-noir mystery set in the smoky world of 1958 San Francisco, a down and out private eye, Joe Nails, experiences surrealistic dreams, in which his once best friend, Mark Tamlyn, pleads for Joe’s help before turning a gun to his own head and firing.
To ease his lingering worries, Joe sets out to locate him and discovers Tamlyn vanished a full month before the dreams began. Nails deepens his probe beneath the sewer-like existence of both the upper and lower classes of the city to uncover a conflicting portrait of Tamlyn rendered by an amazing mixture of unforgettable characters who knew him best. These accounts include those of Tamlyn's ex-wife, who recalls less than fond memories of him; of Mark’s boss, a ruthless Bay Area kingpin who flourishes within the magnitude of his enormous power while intimating he alone is aware of Mark’s whereabouts, and finally to Mark’s married girlfriend, who seems genuinely worried about his fate.
Additionally, Joe is accosted by an indecipherable goon who warns Joe off his investigation while threatening to make him pay if he’s ignored. These portraits of Mark become increasingly conflicting with some suggesting his disappearance is customary and not to be taken seriously, to those hinting he is on the lamb from mobsters and to the several who insist he is dead. Meanwhile, Joe realizes he is being followed and after several attempts are made on his life, he becomes convinced Mark is the victim of foul play. So he continues to dig for the truth and becomes embroiled in an encircling world of murder, deception, and confusion before finally speeding down an unrelenting road with no off-ramps. Yet as that road narrows toward the shocking reality of his friend’s fate and the final desperation of his own, Joe Nails finds himself staring into the dreadful face of the unimaginable.