After twenty years in Los Angeles, Ed Loy has come home to bury his mother. But hers is only the first dead body he encounters after crossing an ocean. The city Loy once knew is an unrecognizable place, filled with gangsters, seducers, hucksters, and crazies, each with a scheme and an angle. But he can't refuse the sexy former schoolmate who asks him to find her missing husband -- or the old pal-turned-small time criminal who shows up on Loy's doorstep with a hard-luck story and a recently fired gun.  (IRE259, $7.99)