Don’t mess with the hothead—or he might just mess with you. Slater Ibáñez is only interested in two kinds of guys: the ones he wants to punch, and the ones he sleeps with. Things get interesting when they start to overlap. A freelance investigator, Slater trolls the dark side of Los Angeles, rooting out insurance fraud, not afraid to use whatever means necessary to get things done, and not about to hold back with his fists. A queer antihero for a new age, Slater walks the line between ordinary life and the frayed fringes of society, keeping his balance with the back-channel support he gets from his idiot cop ex-boyfriend, Conrad, and regular squeeze Andy.
Pulled in on a window-shade job to gather intel on a cheating spouse, Slater discovers there’s another observer on the case, prowling around the backyard with a camera. In the course of tracking him down, along with his target’s paramour, he soon finds out there’s more going on than run-of-the-mill infidelity. The bunco accountant sleeps with anyone he can persuade, regardless of gender, including Slater. And what is Tato really up to in his seedy little shipping store? Dark secrets come to the surface, and with help from a gallery clerk, Slater starts to put the pieces together, all the while trying to stay sober, keep one step ahead of the law, and sort out his feelings for Andy. In a bid to protect the naive European caught up in the intrigue, he comes up with an audacious plan that might just save the guy—and make Slater some serious bank.
George Bixley held a string of jobs, from parking attendant to night desk clerk, before finding his groove in Los Angeles, settling into the seedy underbelly of the metropolis and trying to keep ahead of the wave of gentrification. Bixley sells his soul by day and dredges the bottom by night.