Dead Man's Coast — Peter King

Having witnessed the latest in a string of successful jailbreaks, Jack London puts down his pen and hires on as a deputy. The police know that a mastermind is assembling a team of expert criminals. And the target seems obvious: Belle Conquest, the sexy "Belle of Broadway," who's coming to town with the Rajah's Ruby. To protect the single most valuable stone in the world, Jack undertakes one dangerous mission after the next -- fighting his way from the underground maze of Chinatown to the back alleys of the red-light district to the guarded corridors of the Presidio -- until he ends up in a bind that not even his friend Harry Houdini can get out of....