Edgar and Shamus Award-nominee Don Winslow combines breathless suspense, zany wit, and whiplash action in his latest novel featuring grad student/private eye Neal Carey. Now Neal's assigned to escort monkeyish octogenarian Natty Silver home from Las Vegas to Palm Springs. Natty, once a burlesque top banana, has a nonstop barrage of corny jokes, an eye for an aging cocktail waitress, and a chronic disappearing act.

When Neal catches up with him, he can see why Natty doesn't want to go home. Sole witness to a crime, he's now the quarry of hard-faced suits, a fascist con artist, and a career-track assassin. And bodyguard Neal-scorching through the trackless desert at 80 mph, brooding on his inner child by freezing starlight, and looking down the barrel of one gun too many-is soon dodging vultures and on the brink of a surprise watery grave.