An alcoholic walks into a bar . . . and buys it. At the urging of his sometimes lover and sometimes drinking partner Jacquie Robillard, Elder Darrow uses the last of the money from the trust fund his mother left him to buy the Esposito, a bucket-of-blood bar in Boston that he plans to turn into a jazz nightclub. But before he can turn the place around, the body of Timmy McGuire, a jazz guitar player, shows up on the small stage at the Esposito, stabbed to death.Dan Burton, a Boston Homicide detective, likes Jacquie for the murder. She had a contentious relationship with the guitar player (and a few other men along the way). But one of the other men Jacquie is involved with is the son of an old-line Boston landlord with political designs on the commonwealth's governorship. Burton arrests Jacquie for Timmy McGuire's murder but Elder is certain something darker and deeper than a lover's quarrel is at stake.Jacquie is released on bail. When she shows up dead, Elder is drawn...

Ardmore Theberge returns to Portland, Maine, to start his own business making hand-drawn maps after he gets himself dishonorably discharged from the Army for assaulting a superior officer—who deserved it, by the way, but we'll get to that. He befriends a stationary store owner and her mentally challenged son, Robbie. Ardmore learns the store owner is under increasing pressure to sell her three buildings. When a real estate developer is killed in the store and it looks like Robbie did it, Ardmore steps in to protect the boy, who disappears.Ardmore discovers that two high-ranking politicians want to buy the buildings. Rebekah Horvath, the store's owner, was in the Foreign Service in Belgium with them, years ago, when she was abruptly recalled and forcibly retired. The two politicians believe Rebekah's husband has hidden damaging evidence on them, and their agent in Portland is none other than Roger McGinty, the officer Ardmore beat up in Iraq for desecrating the body...