Then there was the love interest. Beautiful, about ten years older . . . John Arany is the detective, shot down with his partner in a dark hallway. Celia is the lover, the beautiful police psychologist, who injects him with an aggression-enhancing virus. When his partner dies, Arany goes hunting for the killer.
Mysteries pile up.
Good guys turn bad. Painting out bound by Joel Barr Totisz sets his detective novel in the dark ambience of Philadelphia's streets, its warren of underworld nightlife. In Poisonous Kiss , Totisz evokes Philadelphia as an important character in the manner of Hammett's evocation of San Francisco and Chandler's of Los Angeles. The first two proved impossible, but the third proved the biggest challenge of my life. When I was twenty-two, a big publisher accepted my first novel, an environmental thriller.