The Subterranean Man

Niko lives by isolation. A fixer who started his career by solving problems for Los Angeles' organized crime elements, he now works for a higher-class clientele. But the rules are still the same. If you want to hire him, you get a phone number and nothing more. Once he's done the job, you never see him again.

But now events are closing in on Niko, threatening his ability to remain detached. A famous actress has hired him to recover a sculpture she thinks her son has stolen from her. At the same time, Niko has found himself in possession of a $10 million dollar painting from an art-forgery heist gone bad. Now the cops are after him from one side, a European mafia boss is coming at him from the other, and young women all over the city are disappearing in incidents that seem to be related to his cases. And the further he's drawn into the mystery, the more Niko realizes that survival is going to mean encountering things no one ever should.

The Subterranean Man is a hardboiled L.A. noir that explores celebrity, wealth, the degradation that can attend them, and the biggest question of all: What happens when finding the answer to a mystery means facing your own destruction?