Nathan Heller, asleep in his one-room apartment at the Hotel Adams in Chicago, is rousted awake, and taken before ailing gangster Frank Nitti, who barely managed to survive after being shot three times.
Newly-minted private detective, Nathan Heller, runs three minutes late for his lunch with his uncle Louis and a distinguished guest, only to find out it's just the first in a series of events with razor-thin margins of error. Is Heller up to the challenge?
The day after Christmas, Heller takes a sleeper car to Atlanta on the Dixie Flyer, riding into a job that will put him at odds with the most powerful men in Chicago.
Heller waits in the Dill Pickle Club to meet his new client, Mary Ann Beame - she's a girl with a fist full of cash, a mysterious past, and plenty of dark secrets to share with the right guy.
Chicago Mayor Cermak hopes to curry favor with President-Elect Franklin Roosevelt at a political rally in Miami's Bayfront Park. But among the spectators is a hitman sent by a Chicago mob boss - and only Heller can stop him.
Just three days after Chicago Mayor Cermak dies from an assassin's bullet, the Bayfront Park Shooter is tried for attempted murder on four counts and sentenced to eighty years. But Heller knows there's more to the story than a lunatic with a gun.
Heller watches a capacity crowd celebrate the opening of the Chicago World's Fair. Little does he know he's standing at the crossroads of his two biggest cases - and things are about to take an unexpected turn.
Heller takes an unexpected thrill ride at the World's Fair, ending on a metal strut hundreds of feet off the ground. It's just the first of a series of events that night that could spell the end of his fledgling detective agency - and him.
Heller survives being pushed off the Sky Ride at the Chicago World's Fair, triumphs in a brutal battle of blows and bullets, and even invades the domain of a Chicago mob boss without getting killed. But will he make it through breaking the bad news to Mary Anne about her missing brother?
