From the New York Times bestselling author of the Quinn Colson series comes a noir crime classic about one of the most notorious trials in American history.
San Francisco, September 1921: Silent-screen comedy star Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle is throwing a wild party in his suite at the St. Francis Hotel-girls, jazz, bootleg hooch … and a dead actress named Virginia Rappe.
The D.A. says it was Arbuckle who killed her-crushed her under his weight-and brings him up on manslaughter charges. William Randolph Hearst's newspapers stir up the public and demand a guilty verdict.
In desperation, Arbuckle's defense team hires an operative from the famed Pinkerton detective agency to investigate and, they hope, discover the truth. The agent's name is Dashiell Hammett … and what he discovers will change American legal history-and his own life-forever.
