Sham Shamus: Soft-boiled Noir - Where Shadows Laugh: Soft-boiled Noir -
When private investigator Eric Henderson saw the picture of the man he was being hired to find, his self-confidence vanished like a wallet on a park bench.
He was being asked to find himself.
It would never have happened if Henderson hadn't been living the ultimate identity crisis. The macho and cynical detective was sharing his life - and his body - with haphazard idealist Nick Norton, a penniless criminal lawyer. And the past that both he and Norton were trying to suppress actually belonged to the precise and intellectual Warren Stevick, a Chicago lawyer who had received immunity from criminal prosecution in exchange for testimony against some very dangerous clients.
When Henderson is hired to find Stevick, he decides to build a case to prove Stevick is no longer in the area so he and Norton can stay put. But when a body with Stevick's ID turns up in Norton's office and is identified as Stevick by his ex-wife, Henderson no longer feels safe. Especially after he is hired to find his own murderer.
Henderson's investigation leads to some unsettling negotiations with local criminals and an encounter with a woman who isn't sure which side of the law he's on. When she is captured by his unknown adversary, he enlists the assistance of a local fisherman to aid in rescuing her from a boat where she is held hostage. Her rescue leads Henderson to the identity of the person trying to blackmail Stevick. He stages a confrontation in a vintage elevator in a deserted office building, and when he is betrayed, another death occurs. This time it is Norton's ID that is left on the corpse.
And a virgin set of ID is used to begin again
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