The Brass Cupcake Author:John D. MacDonald Take a hard-boiled ex-cop named Cliff Bartells.
Take a beautiful girl with the unlikely name of Melody Chance.
Add the death of one Elizabeth Stegman of Boston, Massachusetts.
Plus her missing jewels, insured for seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
What hav you got?
Murder for profit of course, cold blooded premeditated murder.
Set in the 1950's in Florida, an ex-cop - now insurance recovery man, takes on a case that could be his last. To solve the case he has to battle small town politics, organized crime, and his own heart.