Murdock Cracks Ice

THE BIG CHILL IN SEATTLE

A November breeze blows away the smog as two twinks--a blonde beach sweetheart and a brunette in black leather--stroll the pier near Murdock's place in Newport Beach, California. A dude in sunglasses hands the brunette a REI rucksack of newly cooked methamphetamine hydrochloride, street-named ice, and she hands it over to a dealer. Just another routine $205,000 drug transaction. Until it turns to murder.

The dude is dead with a .22 slug behind the ear, and his father, who thought his brainy son was a chem student at the U. of Washington, asks Murdock to find out why. It's a deadly question that explodes in a shootout at Murdock's and makes this tough P.I. mad as hell. Now he's heading for Seattle, a rainy city full of surprises: a long-limbed lovely lady and a drug culture glittering with megabucks, flying bullets, and one Big Daddy, a kingpin who wants Murdock on ice ... the kind found at the morgue.