Title: Fear of the Dark
First published: 2006
Description: When his cousin Ulysses S. Grant IV comes knocking, Paris Minton would rather keep the door shut, because "Useless" is a snake who brings bad luck wherever he goes.  But trouble always finds an open window, and soon there's a man murdered on his bookshop floor, evidence of blackmail is discovered, and Useless has vanished.  To get out of this mess, Paris turns to his solid-hearted but quick-fisted friend Fearless Jones.  Traversing the complex landscape of 1950s Los Angeles, where a wrong look can get a black man killed, Paris and Fearless find deperate women, secret lives--and more than one dead body.
Subjects: Mystery, Paris Minton (Fictitious character), Private investigators, Fiction, Fearless Jones (Fictitious character), African American men, Booksellers and bookselling, Los angeles (calif.), fiction, African americans, fiction, Fiction, mystery & detective, general, Private investigators, fiction, Booksellers and bookselling, fiction, Large type books
Places: Los Angeles (Calif.), California, Los Angeles