THE MYSTERY SERIES THAT LAUNCHED GARY PHILLIPSโS CAREER
Private eye Ivan Monkโs search for a killer lead to the unraveling of a far-reaching white supremacist conspiracy.
Robert โScatterboyโ Williams is a small-time hustler selling bogus Cartier watches in Pacific Shores, a port city south of Los Angeles. One day, heโs gunned down in the street, seemingly at random. Then drug dealer Ronny Aaron is shot and killed leaving a liquor store. Shortly thereafter, college student Jimmy Henderson is rendered comatose after two bullets to his body. The three victims have nothing in common save the neighborhood where they were shotโand the color of their skin.
The police categorize Scatterboyโs murder as business as usual. But his girlfriend convinces private eye Ivan Monk to find the killer. What looks like three unrelated shootings of Black men in Southern California will put Monk on a tortuous trail unraveling a larger nefarious plan: the rise of an extremist demagogue.
โMonk is an asset in the seriesโflawed, human, angry but levelheaded, brainy and brawny.โโLos Angeles Times Book Review