Lendle

When beautiful Bonita Esquivez hires P.I. Clay Webster to fi nd her husband, Lucky, Clay expects an easy missing-person case. But when Bonita bites a poisoned bonbon, more than a quick buck is at stake. Clay needs to establish exactly who Lucky is and determine if his client could be lying to him.

Fifty-five-year-old Clay Webster knows pain; he lost his thirty-year marriage, his son, Sean, and his twenty-eight-year police career. Trying to build a new life, his wit is his weapon, and humor is his fi rst line of defense against life’s assaults. His search for Lucky centers primarily on Lowell, Massachusetts, where he tries to save a drowning teenager in a canal and hires yet another teenager, Denton La Rock Junior, who has been making prank phone calls to his home. Clay looks for links between Lucky and A Touch of Love, the new porn shop in town.

Meanwhile, Senator Carleton Swinburne rails against the city’s perceived moral decay, personifi ed partly by ex-cops such as Clay Webster. Perhaps Chantal Ladoute, Clay’s old friend the ex-nun, will be his moral gyroscope as he navigates an increasingly dangerous course.