The Million-Dollar Tattoo - Tapa dura

A phone call from a panicked fellow P.I. thrusts Thomas Black into the investigation into a mysterious, beautiful dead woman found in the bed of Elmer Slezak, who insists that she is not from this planet. By the author of The Vanishing Smile. Tour.

d of night, and P.I. Thomas Black is dead asleep. What better time for a panicked phone call from a friend?
The friend is Elmer Slezak, better known as Snake, a fellow gumshoe whose life has long since slipped into a dark mire of wine, women, and weirdness. Now, he's begging Black to take on a case that's one for The X-Files. There's a beautiful, exotic-looking woman dead in Snake's bed. He's not sure how she died, but he's certain about where she came from--outer space.
Even a murder rap and the specter of prison can't make Snake change his story. Thomas Black's job? To rescue the increasingly paranoid Snake and discover if indeed "the truth is out there."
What Black finds--after run-ins with a burly biker chick, a loveless homicide cop, a mysterious homeless man who may have witnessed a murder, and a corporation that's courting Black with big bucks--will prove to be more "out there" than even he could ever imagine. . . .
Hot on the heels of The Portland