Excerpt
Al Giraud, Private Investigator, was sitting in the bar of the Ritz-Carlton,
Laguna Niguel, eating miniature pretzels and drinking a Samuel Adams dark ale,
contemplating life and the fact that he couldn't have a cigarette while waiting
for the always late woman in his life.
It had been nine months since he had last smoked. Enough time to give birth to a
pack of Camels, he thought, resignedly crunching down another pretzel. That was
Marla for you. How come he'd let this woman have so much influence on his life?
He glanced down at his old, faded jeans, short-sleeved plaid shirt, scuffed
boots and the ancient snakeskin belt with the rearing mustang silver buckle,
bought decades ago in his hometown of New Orleans. Then he grinned. At least she
hadn't yet managed to change his style.
Al had become a P.I. the hard way. The easier way would have been to become a
criminal.
He was raised by his mother in one of the poorer parts of town, along with her
five other boys. Somehow she managed to keep them out of trouble, though later
he wondered how. It would have been easy for him to drift over to the other side
into a criminal way of life. "The easy life," his friends called it temptingly.
He'd had a few scrapes with the law, ... read full excerpt from All or Nothing ebook
