The Grand View — Matthew F. O'Malley

The views of San Francisco, so well-known from dozens of film noir tales and classic novels, are the backdrop to a tale rooted in the smart-bombed skyline of present-day Baghdad, with results in San Francisco just as deadly. 

Detective Mike Mason now lives in Pacifica, a small coastal town just south of San Francisco, but is drawn back to the rough streets of the city's Tenderloin District by a new client, Laura Grandviewer, who is as beautiful as she is untrustworthy. Lies and half-truths send Mike upon a crooked path and before he can unsnarl all of the loose ends Laura has set waving in the criminal winds, a growing body count will work to unnerve this harden detective and end in a climatic splash of blood. 

The latest in a long line of West Coast private eyes, Mike Mason takes stock of the state of his soul as he navigates the complexities of a criminal caper, and finds clarity for both in the fog-scrubbed sky viewed from California's winding Highway One.