Book excerpt: Private investigator August Riordan returns to San Francisco to avenge the death of his friend and one-time partner, Chris Duckworth. Duckworth has taken over Riordan’s old business, his old office and even his old apartment, and Riordan suspects Duckworth’s death is linked to the missing person case he was working when he died. An alluring young woman named Angelina hired Duckworth to look for her half-sister, but what Riordan finds instead is a murderous polyamorous family intent on claiming a previously unknown manuscript from dead Beat writer Jack Kerouac. Following clues from Duckworth and a trail of mutilated bodies left by the family, Riordan soon realizes that avenging his partner will first involve recovering the manuscript—and then saving Angelina and himself from kidnap, torture and death. As the bodies pile up, Riordan must work with old allies and enemies to untangle Duckworth’s last case before time runs out. Praise for THE DEAD BEAT SCROLL: “Slick, sardonic and suspenseful—everything a great thriller should be.” —Lee Child, bestselling author of the Jack Reacher novels “Fast-paced excursion into the remnants of San Francisco's lost bohemia…Alternately comic, sad, lurid, impossible, blasphemous, and just plain fun.” —Domenic Stansberry, Edgar Award-winning author of the North Beach Mystery Series