Clyde Flynn, big-shot gangster, has made his share of enemies.

But now he's got Owen Shayne, a washed up gambler, who he decides is easy pickings for his dirty blackmailing scheme. And Owen's got a big brother down at the station who just made inspector and is itching to put his new position into practice.

Last, and apparent least, of Flynn's concerns is his devoted henchman whom he likes to call Lackey.

As Owen gets sucked further down into a life of crime, he learns two things fast-his luck ran out at the casino, and there's more to Lackey than meets the eye.

Over a century ago a new genre took shape within the pulp pages of the old dime novel magazines-The Hardboiled Mystery. This era of gunslinging, wise-cracking heroes, femme fatales, and villainous crime-lords reached a climatic height in the 1940s with the rise of cinema's Film Noir. Then it slowly began to fade. But it left behind a multitude of timeless classics.

Drawing inspiration from these classics, Isabella Adams revisits the genre with her own twists.