Walk a Black Wind — Dennis Lynds

It's the 1970s, and the edgy metropolis of New York attracts waves of newly liberated young women. Like most of them, Francesca Crawford finds an apartment and a job, and she begins dating. She's making a life. She's just twenty years old. When she's stabbed to death, a man twenty-five years older than she appears in the office of private investigator Dan Fortune and offers $2,000 - much more than Fortune charges even on his best day; he'll tell you that himself - to find out who murdered her. The man, a salesman, insists that no one can know he's the guy who hired Fortune. As curious about the salesman as about the victim, Fortune soon discovers the young woman ran away from home three months earlier. Her father is the prominent mayor of an upstate city, from an old, aristocratic Dutch family. Still, in New York City she had been working for tips as a cocktail waitress under an assumed name for the two months before her death. Why had she been using a made-up name, and where had she been in that first month after she left home? Fortune hits the streets to find out. Violence follows him as he heads north. Then, oddly, the trail takes an abrupt turn southwest, to a desolate Arizona Indian reservation. When Fortune uncovers what happened during the missing month, he reveals the terrible secret of why Francesca slammed the door on her past. Swift and passion-filled, the much-lauded Walk a Black Wind is a tale of half truths and lies that erupt in murder. "In the American private-eye tradition of Chandler, Hammett, and Macdonald." - The New York Times Book Review "A master of crime fiction." - Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine " Lynds] writes tales distinguished by a strong personal flavor and originality ... enriched because of Dan Fortune, the compassionate and philosophical private investigator." - Crime and Mystery "This is an admirable specimen of the hard-boiled but literate detective novel whose intricately conceived puzzle is matched by its well-paced narrative style." - The Armchair Detective