The Purple Hand

Imagine you're a cop confronted by a mobster who claims your father is a hit man who quit the Mafia decades earlier. Add to that a threat that if you don't make some hits for the mob, your father is a dead man. Obviously in disbelief, you worry. You have two choices: tell your pop about the mobster's claim and risk your pop having another heart attack. Or not tell him, unfairly leaving your pop vulnerable, and go against everything you believe in. Become a killer.
Now, imagine you're the junior partner new to the plainclothes unit and unaware that the threatened cop had asked for you specifically to be his partner. Soon you find yourself involved in shootings, the first one a fatal.
Do you have a sit-down with your senior partner and risk getting kicked out of a detail that puts you one step closer to the Detective Bureau and your dream of being a homicide detective? Or, do you ride the wave and risk the consequences?
Imagine you're the Mafioso who lost your pa when you were a kid, and because of family tradition you're compelled to satisfy a lifelong vendetta.
What results tests the two partners' adherence to a cop's unwritten loyalty code.
The author was a patrol officer in Hollywood during the period of this story, 1962. It was a time before instant communications, a time when partners had to rely on each other, a time when the LAPD was enjoying a newfound reputation. Los Angeles was coming out of a corrupt and scandalous period. Readers who want to know what it was like to be a cop in the "good old days" will enjoy this character-driven tale. Many of the events and places are real. The characters in this story are composites of actual people.