Investigating the lack of a building permit for Commissioner Brunetti's apartment, a young bureaucrat uncovers a frightening secret and promptly dies from an apparently accidental fall; investigating his death in turn, Brunetti is drawn into a world of drugs, loan-sharking, and corruption.

Loanshark Chili Palmer has done his time as a gangster, so when "business" takes him to Los Angeles to collect a debt from down and out filmmakerHarry Zimm, he talks tough and then pitches Harry a script idea. Everything would be smooth for this cool new producer, if it were't for the drug smugglers and gangsters who won't leave him alone.

"In Beyond the Law Sherman Rawls owns the largest spread in the Red Rock Mesa country. Rawls is also the only law in the area' and he hangs Billy Combs' accusing him of horse stealing' but the real reason is more likely that Combs had been paying undue attention to Rawlss teenage wife."--Publisher's website. "Shadow of a Lobo is the story of Cliff Jenson' a mercantile store-owner in Palisade who's having some trouble."--Publisher's website.

Jake Green is a grifter who vows revenge against Macha, the ferocious crime boss who sent him to prison. After taking Macha down in a game of chance, Macha puts out a hit on Jake. Caught between a gun and a hard place, Jake finds himself protected by two vicious loan sharks who make him an offer he can't refuse.