Synopses & Reviews
"What in hell drove Balinda to a night like this?" Everyone who knew Balinda could have told Seattle private eye Thomas Black that the ex-choir girl thumbed a ride with the devil a long time ago. But not even Luther Little, Balinda's father and Black's former partner, expected the pretty young woman to simply vanish off the face of the earth.
Even stranger than Balinda's disappearance is what she left in her wake: an empty purse, a wrecked car, and a dead Eagle Scout in the backseat pumped four times in the stomach with an automatic. What's more, Balinda never even gave notice at her last job--a cozy little backwater diner where a freezer might keep more than crawdads on ice.
It isn't until Balinda's driver is identified that Thomas and Luther suspect trouble. For it turns out that the victim was a fifth-grade Tacoma schoolteacher with an impeccable reputation. But tracking the past of a white-bread teacher is more hazardous than it sounds. Especially when it leads Thomas and Luther back to that modest little eat-in/take-out . . . called Catfish Café.
You can get anything you want at Catfish Café. But watch out. Some of it bites back.
Serving up nothing less than a wickedly devious plot, clever, textured prose, and a classic combination of intrigue and wit, Catfish Café solidifies Emerson's reputation as a master of hard-boiled suspense.
Synopsis
Earl Emerson's smart, suspenseful, and fast-moving mysteries featuring Seattle gumshoe Thomas Black constitute the best author/ character partnership since Raymond Chandler teamed up with Philip Marlowe. "Catfish Cafe" is their latest brilliant collaboration.
It's been a long time since Thomas Black and Luther Little watched each other's backs as Seattle cops, but the friendship that made them "as close as brothers" has endured. So when his beloved daughter succumbs to drug addiction and vanishes into a world of pushers, pimps, and porno, Luther taps Black's P.I. skills to rescue her from the dark side. But as Black soon discovers, the missing girl had good reason to disappear: She's mixed up in a headline-making murder. And following her trail through the world of vice will lead Black into homicidal hell....
About the Author
Earl Emerson is a lieutenant in the Seattle Fire Department. He is the Shamus Award-winning author of the Thomas Black detective series, which includes The Rainy City, Poverty Bay, Nervous Laughter, Fat Tuesday, Deviant Behavior, Yellow Dog Party, The Portland Laugher, The Vanishing Smile, The Million-Dollar Tattoo, and Deception Pass.
Earl Emerson lives in North Bend, Washington.