The Girl from Nowhere

" I m being followed, she said. I think he wants to kill me. "

When a panicked young woman slips her hand into his in 1960s Chinatown, just before a knife-wielding stalker attacks, private eye Alex Novalis finds his cherished hard-boiled persona threatened by a romantic streak that has a habit of getting him into trouble. Sandy Smollett is triple trouble a stripper who comes on like the girl next door and has a way of bending the truth to suit any occasion. Novalis finds her irresistible.

It doesn t help that her mobster boss, a sleazy politico, and an attorney brandishing an envelope stuffed with cash all warn Novalis that Sandy is strictly off limits. Things don t get easier when Novalis finds a dead man in her apartment, or when they both are kidnapped by homicidal thugs. Who is Sandy Smollett? For once she tells the truth when she tells Novalis, I m the Girl from Nowhere.

Christopher Finch s sophisticated sequel to "Good Girl, Bad Girl" unfolds against the background of a volatile era of social upheaval."