Robert E. Bailey – författare

Private detective and retired counterintelligence officer Art Hardin usually stays away from the flashy kind of PI work, paying his bills by doing surveillance, checking up on false disability claims, and the like. So when the senior partner one of the premier legal firms in Grand Rapids approaches Hardin about a job protecting his niece from her soon-to-be ex-husband for a couple of days, Hardin isn't exactly eager to take on the job, not the least because the niece herself is under house-arrest pending a murder investigation of her former boss . . . and the sudden disappearance of eleven million dollars . . .

Art Hardin, retired military intelligence officer turned private investigator, is content with his regular caseload involving insurance fraud and employee theft. So when a wealthy industrialist approaches Art to find an old flame, he's wary of taking on the case. Only when pressed by his wife, Wendy, does Art agree to help, but only if the decision to make contact is left to the missing person.The former lover, a reclusive but prominent artist who has changed her name, turns up dead shortly after Art locates her. His client charged with murder and his detective's license revoked, an angry Hardin finds himself the subject of ';professional' surveillance, his office ransacked, and his life up for grabs as a shoot-out erupts on the street.The FBI, long on requests and short on information, approaches Art for his help . . . to act as bait. Seemingly out of options, Art agrees, but with an ace up his sleeve. Aided by an outlaw motorcycle gang, Art decides that, this time, the bait is going to bite back.

Some secrets age well, others tend to fester. Art Hardin, a private investigator and retired counterintelligence officer, is a man of many secrets. One of these secrets has fallen into the hands of a local TV muckraker, which can cause enough trouble to keep most noir detectives busy for three hundred pages-Art's not that lucky.Just after Art locks horns with the journalist, his wife, Wendy, takes him to the airport to pick up a young friend returning from a Caribbean vacation. Karen Smith deplanes with a fabulous tan, a new beau, and a suitcase full of money; Karen doesn't know about the money, but her new Middle Eastern boyfriend does.Using a Canadian passport to enter the US, he put the money in Karen's suitcase so he wouldn't have to carry it through customs.After a donnybrook and a shootout at Karen's house, the money disappears. Lots of people want it. Some of them kidnap Karen, some of them set off a bomb at the TV station while Art is on the air with the muckraker.After that, things get nasty.