Friends Like These — Jessica A. White

“From the Files of Mercedes Mace: Friends Like These” is the second entry in the Mercedes Mace series, a faux-vampire, Sam Spade-esque detective in a dystopian, alternate San Francisco. Trouble is afoot, this time just down the street: a local SoMa fixture is murdered. But he's just a homeless person, a vagrant, with no one to seek justice for him except for his timid sidekick. …And our righteous private investigator, who must brave the highest echelons of noble authority and the underworld, tangling with international figures of mystery, taking care to stay just out of reach of the assassin who kills with just a touch!
Employing little Holmesian logic, but extrapolating her resources to the high-tech 21st-century, Mercedes Mace is a swearing, brawling, lawfully-flexible PI, placing the troubles of the indentured poor ahead of her own financial gain and physical safety. Her colloquial-vampirism, parodies, and popular satire make her an entertaining character for hip readers, while her gritty, ‘right-place-wrong-time' approach to investigation will echo the noire, populist appeal of ‘old-time' radio show detectives.