This novel had the sparse, stuttering pace of a Monroe-era noir film. It centers on one deputy-coroner turned gum shoe and his probing into the conspiracy surrounding the death of Marilyn Monroe, as he tells it to the investigator after his own arrest. True to the conspiracy, it's hard to tell which characters are playing for the good guys and in a contest between the LAPD and the Mafia, is there a good side?

SPOILER: Near the end I was afraid he was going for a Shutter Island ending, with his drug induced version of which was right and who was actually the villian switching roles. In the end there are no neat tidy answers and the conspiracy swallows the protagonist.