Attorney John J. Malone, steadfast barfly and proud defender of the guilty, has a lot enemies, but few more formidable than Chicago financier and anti-vice crusader Leonard Estapole. So it doesn't look good when Estapole's corpse turns up in Malone's office, liberated from this life by a bronze Buddha to the skull. But when the stiff's stepdaughter is kidnapped, and Malone is implicated, it's a frame job gone too far. Especially when Malone is suddenly saddled with the obnoxious abductee-a dimpled little extortionist who refuses to go home. If only Malone could count on his friends, Jake and Helene Justus. Unfortunately, Helene's disappeared from a Wyoming dude ranch and her friendship with Estapole's trophy-wife widow is too coincidental for comfort. Now, with every blindsiding twist of the case, Malone is starting to feel more and more like a hostage himself. The first mystery writer to ever make the cover of Time magazine

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