Mike Hammer has been away from New York too long Recuperating in Florida after a deadly mob shootout the private eye learns that an old mentor on the New York police force has committed suicide Hammer returns for the funeralmdashand because he knows that Inspector Doolan would never have killed himself But Manhattan in the s no longer feels like home Hammerrsquos lovely longtime partner Velda has disappeared after he broke it off for her own safety and his office is shut down When a woman is murdered practically on the funeral homersquos doorstep Hammer is drawn into the hunt for a cache of Nazi diamonds that makes the Maltese Falcon seem like a knickknack and for the mysterious beauty who had been close to Doolan in his final days But drug racketeers who had it in for the tough old police inspector attract Hammerrsquos attention as well Soon he is hobnobbing with coke-snorting celebrities at the notorious disco Club and playing footsie with a sleek lady DA a modern female on the make for oldfashioned Hammer Everything leads to a Mafia social club where Hammer and his come calling initiating the wildest showdown since Spillanersquos classic One Lonely Night.
