The Hapless Gonif

Don’t mess with the hothead—or he might just mess with you. Slater Ibáñez is only interested in two kinds of guys: the ones he wants to punch, and the ones he sleeps with. Things get interesting when they start to overlap.

Hired to get eyes on a shady nightclub owner, Slater gets mixed up with a gamut of locals—the house band’s foxy drummer with the psychic proclivities, the striver who seems overly attracted to Slater, and a string of jewelers running businesses on the block. An old contact helps him scope out the abandoned delivery tunnels that riddle the neighborhood, but are they still in use as part of a grift? When the feds start poking around, the game changes, and Slater finds himself caught between his chiseler client and a femme fatale. A fateful decision sees him dogged by somebody’s angry stooges, forced to take charge of the situation, and finally driven out into the desert.

Freelance investigator Slater trolls the dark side of Los Angeles, rooting out insurance fraud, not afraid to use whatever means necessary to get things done, and not about to hold back with his fists. A queer antihero for a new age, Slater walks the line between ordinary life and the frayed fringes of society, keeping his balance with the back-channel support he gets from main squeeze Pike, business partner Max, and operatives Andy and Etta.