PI Joey Mancuso was just a kid when he watched a stranger walk into a Little Italy bar, shoot his mobster dad in the chest, and calmly walk back out, disappearing into the Manhattan din. The murder was never solved. And the old mob adage “an eye for an eye” went unfulfilled. 

But now, at death’s door, infamous mobster Tony the Hammer summons Joey and utters three mysterious words: “Wetherly Stevens, Barcelona.” Joey has no doubt he’s just been told how to find his father’s killer. 

Revenge, deep-seated wounds, that agonizing cold case, and a mysterious series of small town murders all come to a head in the fifth hard-boiled Mancuso/O’Brian mystery - with a dash of international intrigue - when witty ex-cop Joey, with the help of his PI brother, Father Dominic O’Brian, attempts to track down his father’s murderer in Barcelona and Hilton Head, SC. 

From tantalizing tapas near La Sagrada Familia to bourbon-soaked pulled pork sandwiches at a South Carolina B&B, murder couldn’t get any more flavorful - or more personal. 

Armed with only those three words, and - true to form - with no plan and very little research, Joey flies straight to Barcelona. But what does a New York wise guy have in common with an investment banker? 

Perhaps retired partner Alexander Wetherly has answers. But a peaceful Q&A on quaint Daufuskie Island turns murderous when the elderly gentleman who runs Joey’s B&B winds up stabbed to death. And this isn’t the first murder of its kind - it seems Daufuskie Island has a grisly and deeply-seated cold case all its own. 

One-part seductive international travel story, one part old-school cold-case murder mystery, Joey Mancuso’s antics will prove a delight to PI and police procedural fans of Raymond Chandler, Joseph Wambaugh, Lawrence Block, and Rex Stout. Also recommended for fans of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer mystery series, and, of course, the Sherlock Holmes adventures.