Naked Moon

by Domenic Stansberry

Book Overview

Edgar Award-winner Stansberry's San Francisco noir series brings private investigator Dante Mancuso face to face with the past he thought he had escaped. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312364547
• ISBN13: 9780312364540
• Release Date: March 2010
• Publisher: Minotaur Books
• Length: 295 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.1" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

nod to John Grisham's The Firm

No one walked away from the top secretive Company until Dante Mancuso did. To do so he had to take with him secrets that would expose the Company of illegal activity if something happened to him. Dante settled in his hometown of San Francisco becoming a private investigator who tried to avoid anything remotely tied to his previous employment. Meanwhile SFPD Special Investigations Officer Leanora Chin investigates Dante's cousin Gary who operates a crooked warehouse. Gary knows if he cooperates with the cop, the Wu Benevolent Association will sever that tie by killing him. Feeling caught between the Rock and the bay, he contacts his cousin's former employee who promises to assist him if Dante performs a Company task. Feeling triangulated, Dante seeks a way out without harming his loved ones as he knows the firm will demand more favors of him or else his cousin and others will go down. With a nod to John Grisham's The Firm although Dante is much better prepared than Mitch McDeere, Dominic Stansberry provides a great San Francisco treat. The North Beach thriller is fast-paced from the moment the impassive Dante calmly realizes his options and never slows down as he works the mission with subtle plans of what he must do if he is too ever be free of his insidious former employers whose grip is tighter than a stay at the Hotel California. Harriet Klausner

"We are all fish. We all get caught in the net."

Dante Mancuso is at home in San Francisco's Italian North Beach neighborhood, sifting through the remnants of his deceased father's life, contemplating the fate of an on-and-off relationship with Marilyn Visconti, a woman he has known- and loved-for years. But everything changes with a phone call, his job as an employee for Cicero's Investigations, his future with Marilyn, even his life expectancy as the ghosts of the past return to haunt him. A former career in corporate security has hounded Dante into the present, "The Company" demanding he acquire a diary that may have surfaced in Chinatown, a list of names and numbers that endangers the organization. The message is clear: recover the book or your lover is history. Suddenly Dante's future doesn't look as promising, the familiar territory of his childhood and his freedom from the past subject to immediate change. Old habits quickly return as Mancuso senses the change in atmosphere, the violent death of his cousin by garroting, the inscrutable solidarity of the Wu family when he starts asking questions about the diary, too many suspicious coincidences, the veiled threats of a former partner in the SFPD and the appearance of a familiar car in his rear view mirror wherever he goes. Dante's relationship with Marilyn must be shattered, his lover sent away with no explanation, his painstaking efforts to stay ahead of his pursuers never quite successful. The drama builds and along with it the violence from unexpected quarters, a cheap hotel in Chinatown, a little bungalow for sale in Marin County, the old neighborhood now filled with menacing shadows. The Company kills with impunity, Mancuso's options few and running out as he finds himself trapped in a blind alley with two cold-eyed killers and one conscientious cop. This short noir thriller has all the bells and whistles, a great treat. Luan Gaines/2010.