Dark, murky, and effective story of a much-battered private eye trying to find a murderer among the S&M/B&D set in San Francisco. Lurid but literate, although Nisbet definitely goes overboard a time or two or three or four or.... Reminiscent of Chandler in many ways, particularly The Big Sleep, even though it is set sometime near its published date of 1981. The biggest similarity is that Nisbet's private eye Martin Windrow, is driven by his own internal code to find the solution to the mystery, regardless of anyone else's notion of justice. ( )