After being reported as dead in a German POW camp, Jack Chesley returns to L.A. in 1947 very much alive, only to discover that his wife is dead-and her twin sister insists that it wasn't an accident like the cops said. They set out to find her killer, a journey that takes them from the boozy back corners of Musso & Frank, to the Camarillo mental hospital, to a seedy motel where blackmailers shoot dirty movies. In the spirit of such noir masters as Cain and Chandler, Dead Extra explores new shadows on the seedy side of midcentury Southern California.
"Dark, seamy, and complex, Dead Extra is, at first glance, an excellent, faithful foray into old school L.A. noir. Jack Chesley is a hard-drinking former cop and World War II vet, pushed into investigating his wife's suspicious death by her identical twin sister. But Sean Carswell is a writer who understands this genre well enough to subvert it left and right, particularly when it comes to the dea
Steph Cha, author of Dead Soon Enough and Follow Her Home
