Any Port in a Storm: An Emmanuel Smith Mystery

Any Port in a Storm introduces us to Inspector Emmanuel Smith, a twenty-two year veteran of the Bay Port City Police Department. He’s a law enforcement burnout, having been a corpse cop for nearly a decade too long ... but he’s tougher than a trigonometry test and solving whodunits is the only thing he’s good at anymore.

Manny Smith and his partner Aloysius Conway are just biding their time until they can retire, but with ex-wives and kids, both men are afraid that they’ve literally screwed themselves into thirty years on the job. When a prostitute named Pinky turns up dead in Elm Park, it marks the beginning of the deadliest case of the men’s career—and the little hooker’s body is only the start of what turns into a sinister plot of murder and betrayal.

Any Port in a Storm takes place on the Pacific coast; Bay Port City is a bleak landscape of corruption and crime, being fought over by rival crime families. The detectives slog through their days and drink away their nights, looking to make a buck wherever—and however—they can. When Manny meets a mysterious woman in a bar owned by a former cop, he just can’t believe that she’s a schoolteacher—not with that figure and those fishnet stockings. Who is Susan Marsh? And how does she tie into their baffling case?

Any Port in a Storm is a gritty and raw police procedural; it is host to a thread of dark humor and an overall sense of tragedy, leaving the reader unsure of whether to laugh or cry—but in the end, you will do both ... and you will look forward to the upcoming sequel to this gripping thriller.