His latest case has Private Investigator Lawrence Mallory wondering whether the past is ever truly dead as he continues to confront people who desperately hope it is...

• A successful architect, admired in his profession, and his wife, a woman deeply involved in community activities. No one would guess they once directed and starred in stag films.

• The president of a large construction company, who started out as the protégé of a notorious gangster and has used what he learned from him to ensure his business always turns a profit.

• A well-regarded camera shop owner, who used to run the numbers racket on the city's south side.

• A respectable woman who has buried two wealthy husbands -- one the father of her adult son, whom she keeps tied securely to her apron strings, the other, a banker who had no qualms about doing business with the mob.

• And then there's the aforementioned notorious gangster. He disappeared after getting out of prison, but could he still be around, making his influence felt?

What connects all these good citizens, and a few more like them, is a stamp--a Mauritius One-Penny Red-Orange, one of the rarest and most valuable in the world.

And it's been stolen.

This is where Mallory comes in. His client: the architect's enigmatic wife, whom Mallory describes as having "a James Joyce face -- hard to read." She's divorcing her explosive-tempered husband, and though they have no children, there is still a custody battle, and it's over the stamp. She took it from where he'd hidden it; now somebody's taken it from her.
What begins as a simple theft case soon gets complicated. There's a suicide (or is it a locked room murder made to look like a suicide?), another death that definitely is murder, and some large individuals who want to put Mallory in the hospital, if not the morgue.

With help from his wife/secretary/assistant, Kate, and their too-wise-beyond-her-fourteen-years daughter, Susanna, Mallory plunges into a world where secrets never stay buried, respectability is just another disguise -- and the past always collects its due.

POSTAGE DUE: A fast-paced, roguishly funny noir mystery about blackmail, past sins, a stamp, and inevitably, murder.

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• Mystery, Thriller & SuspenseMysterySeries

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• Print Length: 376 Pages
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