{"product_id":"done-for-a-dime-isbn-9780449007150","title":"Done for a Dime","description":"Raymond “Strong” Carlisle made his mark as an ace sideman to the biggest names in R\u0026amp;B. Now he lies in the mud outside his home, shot dead from behind. He’s the first official casualty in a dirty war for control of Rio Mirada: a low-rent “city in transition” at the northernmost point of the San Francisco Bay, beset by drug dealers, arsonists, squatters, and restless developers. And now a murderer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn Rio Mirada, the truth is in short supply. What’s plentiful are people with all the reasons in the world to make sure the murder of Strong Carlisle remains unsolved. And the harder Detective Dennis Murchison pushes for answers, the clearer it becomes that this single, brutal homicide is just the tip of an iceberg in a town where small-time crime and big-time corruption are about to collide with explosive consequences.“Gritty, uncompromising . . . If you are looking for the best in contemporary crime fiction, this is it.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“DAZZLING . . . The beauty of Corbett’s seductive style [is that] for all the lyricism of his narration and all the compassion he shows his characters, he never strays too far from the blunt vigor of California noir.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“\u003ci\u003eDone for a Dime\u003c\/i\u003e starts out sharp and never loses its edge as the action becomes more intense. Corbett doesn’t blow a wrong note in what is one of the best police novels of the year. Each character who marches through these pages is believable and fascinating. Corbett’s knowledge of police and the murky world they inhabit make this story a find. I won’t want to miss his upcoming books.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eRocky Mountain News\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“[A] TERRIFIC MYSTERY . . . Corbett does people beautifully.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Chicago Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A RESONANT, RELEVANT PIECE OF CONTEMPORARY FICTION . . . with breadth, depth, and texture.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“[\u003ci\u003eDone for a Dime\u003c\/i\u003e] should put David Corbett into the front rank of American crime writing. . . . At once staccato and melodic, it’s tough as hell without sacrificing the tenderness that was at the heart of [his] first book.”\u003cbr\u003e—SCOTT PHILLIPS\u003cbr\u003e   Author of \u003ci\u003eThe Ice Harvest\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eCottonwood\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“An extraordinary police procedural . . . Corbett’s characters ring true across many color lines.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e—San Jose Mercury News\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Some writers put all they have into their first novel and can never equal it. Others, gaining confidence the second time out, spread their wings and soar to unexpected heights. David Corbett is among the lucky ones. . . . The brilliance of \u003ci\u003eDone for a Dime\u003c\/i\u003e . . . announces an important new voice in crime fiction.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“David Corbett [is] a soulful storyteller. . . . Here’s a man . . . daring to deepen and enrich the genre. \u003ci\u003eDone for a Dime\u003c\/i\u003e is shot through with a quality rare to crime fiction—compassion.”\u003cbr\u003e—EDDIE MULLER\u003cbr\u003e   Author of \u003ci\u003eThe Distance \u003c\/i\u003eand\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e   The Art of Noir: The Posters and Graphics \u003cbr\u003e   from the Classic Era of Film Noir\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“The scruffy, lively, multiracial town is as much a major character in [\u003ci\u003eDone for a Dime\u003c\/i\u003e] as the people who live, work, cheat and murder each other in various ways on its streets.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Chicago Tribune\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“[A] sharp and exceptionally poignant second suspense novel . . . [Corbett’s] characters . . . will linger in readers’ thoughts for a long time.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“One of the best things that can happen to bibliophiles is to discover an author they’ve never heard of, but whose books will now be on their list of must-reads. David Corbett’s books will forever be on my list. . . . Done for a Dime starts out sharp and never loses its edge as the action becomes more intense. Corbett doesn’t blow a wrong note in what is one of the best police novels of the year. Each character who marches through these pages is believable and fascinating. Corbett’s knowledge of police and the murky world they inhabit make this story a find. I won’t want to miss his coming books.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003ci\u003eRocky Mountain News\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eDavid Corbett\u003c\/b\u003e is also the author of \u003ci\u003eDone for a Dime\u003c\/i\u003e. For nearly fifteen years he was a senior operative with a prominent San Francisco private investigation firm, working on a number of high-profile criminal and civil litigations, including the Lincoln Savings \u0026amp; Loan scandal and the People’s Temple trial. After that, he worked with his late wife Terri in a small law practice in northern California, where he continues to reside.\u003cb\u003e1\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEvery black-and-white to be spared had come, seven of the ten on graveyard, drawn in once the watch commander broke the Code 33. Dennis Murchison studied the crowd while his partner, Jerry Stluka, parked their unmarked Crown Victoria as close as he could.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOnlookers gathered in the battering strobes of colored light. Even though the rain had stopped, umbrellas sprouted here and there. On the perimeter, one older couple, decked in bathrobes and slippers, clutched their pajamas to their throats and craned on tiptoe to see.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMurchison and Stluka pulled out their IDs, put the tabs into their jacket pockets so the badges showed, then drew latex gloves from the dispenser on the dash. Stluka, eyeing the crowd, said, \"Am I free to assume this officially kicks off Black History Month?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe was sable-haired, muscular, compact. A build referred to as pyknic, Murchison had learned once doing a crossword puzzle. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Got any pills you can take, stem the flow for a little while?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStulka inhaled through his teeth, a hard, thin whistling sound. \"Yeah. Keep 'em with the antiwhining tablets. Want one?\" He stretched his glove tight. \"Who's I-C?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Holmes.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStluka cackled. \"Sherlock!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMurchison took stock of the faces swinging their way. Young men mostly, some with eyes like stones, full of what-the-fuck and who-are-you. \"Once we get inside the tape, do me a favor. Lay off the Sherlock bit. Think you can do that?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStluka groaned. The pain of it. \"Seems to me we could stand to lighten up a little. Get a sense of humor. You want, I could call him Maid Marion like they used to down around Dumpers substation.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Oh yeah. That'll work.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Hey--you want to be treated like one among equals, you take the damn chip off your shoulder.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Whose shoulder? I'm the one asking.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStluka made a little wave to suggest further discussion was beneath him. \"I'm ready. You?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey got out of the car and eased their way though the crowd from the back, checking faces. Murchison noted a player or two, known thugs, but that was hardly strange. They lived up here. One guy gripped an open Mickeys, talking smack into a cell phone. Others had their dogs in tow, pits and rotts. The animals strained against their chain leashes, sniffing the air. They'd caught the scent of the victim's blood.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHennessey, who had the hill for patrol that night, stood in the middle of the street, ducking under one neighbor's umbrella as he jotted down her words. The woman wore pink sweats beneath a yellow slicker, bare feet in flip flops, her hair coiled meticulously into French braids.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMurchison came up, placed a hand on the officer's arm, and said quietly, \"Hennessey Tennessee, toodle your flute.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe man was big, Irish--priestly eyes, wastrel grin. \"Murch, hey.\" He nodded toward the woman under the umbrella. \"Detective Murchison? Marcellyne Pathon.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe had high cheekbones in a round, childlike face. Behind thick horn-rims her brown eyes ballooned. She shook Murchison's hand. Her skin felt warm, her palm damp, not from rain. Nearby, a few young toughs in the crowd drifted back, far enough not to get dragged in, not so far as to leave earshot.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"She lives across the way.\" Hennessey pointed with his pen. Two little girls stood holding hands in the window, silhouettes, peering out at their mother. \"Says she heard the shots, they woke her up, but--\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Didn't see nobody.\" It came out quick. She adjusted her glasses. \"I went to the window, you know, looked out, but--\" A shrug. \"All dark out here, you know?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Your children hear anything?\" Murchison nodded toward her house.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLike that, she stiffened. \"No, sir. All of us, the girls, too, we gone to bed already. Got church tomorrow.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"How about a car? Hear one? See one?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe took in a long, slow breath, thinking it through. \"No, sir. Don't remember no car.\" Her eyes held steady behind the Coke bottle lenses.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Any voices, shouts, an argument?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"No, sir. It was the shots, like sudden. Just them. Rest was real quiet. Especially for a Saturday. The storm, I figure.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Mr. Carlisle hard to get along with?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe recoiled just a little, as though accused. \"How you mean?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Just trying to get an idea of who the man was, Marcellyne.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHer face relaxed a little, and she gave the question long consideration. She seemed conflicted. \"What Mr. Carlisle was, was big--know what I'm saying? Spoke his mind. Stand back when he did, okay? But he was no trouble. I can't say nothing about him hurtin' nobody.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The other neighbors. Any tension?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNearby, one guy with a dog craned to listen in. Hennessey edged over, herded him and his animal back.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Not with me. Not with folks I know.\" Her eyes skittered around. Her voice quavered. \"Have to ask them, I suppose.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMurchison nodded, glanced around at the nearest faces. Eyes fled his gaze. \"Okay, Marcellyne. Great. Thank you. I'll get back in touch if I think we need some follow-up, okay?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe didn't wait for her reply, but drew away, at the same time pulling Hennessey with him, turning him so their backs faced the crowd.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"This is your usual area up here, am I right?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHennessey shrugged. The polyester shoulders of his uniform beaded with rain. \"Normally, yeah. Sure. Trade off from time to time--Brickyards, Dumpers--but I know the lay of the land pretty good up here.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Look around. See any strange faces?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHennessey didn't have to look. \"Here and there. But you know how it is. You're not a fuckup or his family, I don't know you.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom far back in the crowd, a voice shouted, \"Pig white po-po motherfuckers!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMurchison didn't bother to look. \"You've got your Polaroid in the trunk?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Checked it out beginning of shift,\" Hennessey said. \"Sure.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMurchison made a pressing gesture with his finger, the shutter button. \"Don't wait, okay?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMurchison joined up with Stluka just beyond the yellow crime scene tape, strung in a semicircle to keep the crowd back. An ancient sycamore loomed over a tall fence of rain-streaked dogtooth redwood that rimmed the property. A second ribbon of tape festooned the fence like bunting. A uniformed officer named Truax manned the gate, clipboard in hand, keeping the entry\/exit log.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMurchison took a moment to survey the neighborhood. St. Martin's Hill shared the same high bluff overlooking the river as Baymont, the two neighborhoods divided by a shabby panhandle known for trade. St. Martin's was generally considered the better locale, working-class and stable, but the spate of foreclosures since the shipyard's closing had changed that.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eQuicksilver mines once threaded the hill, part of a rim of upcroppings known extravagantly as the Sierra de Napa according to some old survey maps. Below, the Napa River flowed out from the salt marshes into San Pablo Bay. Only the western slope of the hill had been developed; the backside gave way to a broad, weed-choked ravine, former site of several sleeper mines. The ground remained too toxic from mercury for home building.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom this side of the range, though, on a clear night, glancing south from the bluff headlands, you could see San Francisco glimmering in the distance, like a wicked dream. Northward, beyond the salt flats, lay vintner paradise, the Napa Valley, with its thousands of acres of fretwork vines and the hundreds of tons of silt load they sent downriver. You could hardly head a boat upstream anymore except at high tide. An ecological disaster, those vineyards, but the yuppie-come-latelies couldn't love them enough.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn daylight, you looked west across the river to the Mayacamas Mountains, the interim distance greened with tidal wetlands riven by waterways--China Slough, Devil's Creek, Dutchman Slough. As a boy, Murchison had water-skied those sloughs with his older brother, Willy, breaking an arm once, his brother losing teeth, prelegal teens anesthetized with beer. Once, they'd traded chugs from a fifth of Four Roses bourbon--paint thinner with food coloring, basically--filched from a passed-out fisherman snoring in his boat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe brothers had hunted together, too, looking for ruddies and stiff tails flying in to feed in the tidal pools, jackrabbits darting in and out of the fennel and coyote bush on the salt marsh levees, pheasant flushed out of the artichoke thistle around Five Brooks. Up near Dutton's Landing they'd helped buck oat hay for pocket money. After dusk they snuck into The Dream Bowl storeroom and helped themselves to a beer or two, then traded belches while the spinning tower light at the Napa Airport mesmerized them and they talked about girls they knew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA lifetime ago, all that. As of 1972, Willy survived only in memory; you'd find his name etched in black granite among fifty-eight thousand others on the Mall in D.C. What hunting Murchison got to now concerned men. From time to time, he still felt the need for anesthesia.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe turned his eyes back to the immediate surroundings.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSt. Martin's laid claim to being one of the few genuinely integrated neighborhoods in town, though halfheartedness more than high-mindedness deserved the credit for that. Haywire zoning had let in the low-rent apartments, and they were nests of trouble. Absentee rentals were a blight. This had driven out a lot of the whites, and almost all the ones left behind worked in the building trades, cast adrift by the shipyard closing, traveling hours up and down the valley now for any work they could find.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn truth, the racial tensions in town were a good deal less edgy than you'd find in dozens of other places, though that didn't mean they didn't exist. Just because people intermingled didn't mean they mixed. The same held true for the force. Murchison got along with Black cops all right, or he had before being partnered with Stluka. Now he was an enigma, but he couldn't do much about that without undermining his partner, a cardinal sin the way Murchison saw it. Loyalty was a duty, not a bond. Besides, he knew only too well that getting along isn't friendship. And you didn't have to wonder much what secret feelings remained at work beneath the surface of things--on the force, among ordinary people.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs for the folks who lived up here, they did well to know their neighbors beyond hello, regardless of race, and the ones they did know owed that familiarity to trouble--a men's rehab center trying to get zoning for ten additional beds; or the duplex owners who'd phonied up a permit request, then painted the house in clown colors when the Planning Department turned them down. Here and there, you did still find a family who'd lived in the same house for decades, but now their children were taking over the property, hoping for a little of that inflation windfall so key to the California dream anymore.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBeing close to the panhandle, this particular street was mostly Black, though scattered here and there in the crowd Murchison caught a white face. He'd be interested in Hennessey's Polaroids. Be interested in which faces Marcellyne Pathon could identify, which ones she couldn't. Which ones she wouldn't.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAcross the panhandle in Baymont, things got worse. Up top there was a reasonably decent neighborhood called Home in the Sky, built by a man named Jameson Carswell, a local legend--only Black developer the town had ever seen. In the fifties and sixties he'd built almost all the new homes owned by African Americans up here, then formed his own finance company to loan out mortgage money when the local banks refused, hoping to ruin him. A fierce loyalty remained among the older home owners over there. Old folks, they remembered.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlmost everything below that one neighborhood, though, despite the stellar views, qualified for Section 8. More than shacks, less than houses, they were old federal housing units left behind by World War II, now with add-ons and renovations grandfathered in decade after decade. Shabby apartment buildings and four-room prefabs set onto concrete slab pretty much finished the picture.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePatrol units seldom ventured over into Baymont for so much as a barking dog except in teams of three. Narrow winding streets snaked downhill among eucalyptus trees and Monterey pines so ratty and thick with duff they almost qualified as tinder. At the bottom, where the panhandle ended, the streets on that side converged with those from over here on St. Martin's--it was the only way in or out of either neighborhood, another relic of the federal housing plan. Traffic bottlenecked down there every morning and every night. A renovation plan was in the works, but that had been true for thirty years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBeyond the low stone wall demarcating the Baymont and St. Martin's Hill communities, twenty-five acres of vacant navy row houses sat empty. They'd been targeted for condo conversion--a contractor had the plans approved for 250 town houses, model units were due for completion early next year--but then cost overruns for heating and electrical upgrades halted work, or so they said. Meanwhile the project just sat there, inviting the worst.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo the south along the river, the warehouse district began. Boxcars tagged with graffiti turned to rust in the rail yards. Piles of pumice and concrete powder, heaped along the loading docks, sent gritty dust clouds sailing through town, ruining paint jobs and prompting asthma attacks.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe night trade down there, among the warehouses, made the action up here on the hill look like church. That's where you found the lion's share of meth labs and crack houses and shooting galleries--if you found them. They roamed spot to spot, week by week, to avoid crackdowns, and even with federal HIDTA money, the force had yet to build up the manpower to do much. Bangers ran roughshod, and where they didn't the bikers did, the two sides negotiating truces only money could explain.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBeyond that lay Dumpers and the rest of southtown, absentee rentals again, a lot of Section 8. Live there, you inhaled mold through your walls and looked out at the street through metal bars. What you saw, more than likely, day or night, was hookers working twists along the side streets off the truck route. Come morning, if you ventured very far outside, you had to watch your step to avoid the spent rubbers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe whole town had started to backslide when the first big wave of parolees came back to town, trying to reclaim what parts of the street trade they'd surrendered when they'd gone inside. Crime rates were ticking upward again. Six murders already this year, first week of February. Six murders and fifteen fires, in an overgrown town. A community in transition, some bow-tied consultant hired by the mayor's office had called it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTurning back to the murder scene, Murchison had to peer over the tall wood fence just to see a rim of roofline. The upper tip of an addition appeared near the back. Raggedy plum trees flanked the yard.","brand":"Ballantine Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301927604453,"sku":"NP9780449007150","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780449007150.jpg?v=1767725509","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/done-for-a-dime-isbn-9780449007150","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}