Dick Henry is again cruising Los Angeles in his 1969 Cadillac Coupe de Ville convertible; the metropolis may look sunny and bright to gawking tourists, but it's dark and seedy to him. P.G. Sturges (The Shortcut Man) has brought back his wily antihero not only by popular demand but because L.A. is so inveterately bad that Dick Henry has mountains of work to do to keep his friends out of trouble. And if he has to take a few shortcuts around the legally sanctioned methods to get the job done, he's fine with that.
This riotous installment involves a pole-dancer, an elderly real estate developer and the unrelenting forces for gentrification of ethnic neighborhoods. The gentrifiers are not above threatening longtime residents with violence if they don't get out fast enough, but they may have pushed around the wrong woman this time.
Troublemakers may be no match for the Shortcut Man, but Dick Henry's women don't come around to his way of thinking so easily. His current on-and-off girlfriend, the glorious, tempestuous Kiyoko--plus two former flames--keeps him on his toes as he learns the value of a really good art forger, a super-size walk-in freezer, fake gas company IDs and, of course, a classic Coupe de Ville convertible. --John McFarland, author