Red Diamond, Private Eye

Battling New York traffic is the least of cabbie Simon Jaffe’s problems. With a shrewish wife, difficult kids, and the usual middle aged angst, his only escape is reading hard boiled mysteries. Chandler, Hammett, McDonald, Spillane, Parker—they’re good, but nothing beats the Red Diamond private eye series for tough guy patter, bedazzling dames and thuggish villains.

When Simon is mugged and robbed of his identity, the trauma causes him to become Red Diamond. With the skills he’s picked up from hours of reading, plus the confidence born from a loosened contact with reality, Red sets out to find his lady love, Fifi La Roche. Everything obstacle and danger is seen as the handiwork of the villainous Rocco Rico. Red stumbles forward with a kind heart and a thick head, traveling mean streets in his untarnished, heroic way.

When Red Diamond hit the streets in 1983, he earned rave reviews from dozens of newspapers, including the New York Times, Newsday, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, Los Angeles Daily News, Library Journal, Los Angeles Herald Examiner, New York Daily News, and Dallas Times Herald.

This is the first in the three novel Red Diamond series. Mark Schorr is the author of 11 novels, all in the mystery or thriller genre