1978 Random House first edition hardcover

1978 Random House first edition hardcover, a modern classic

cover illustration by Stan Zagorowoski

1st novel with private eye C.W. Sughrue with begins with the masterful and oft-quoted sentence: “When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon.”