Moonlight Falls is the Albany, New York-based paranoid tale (in the Hitchcock tradition) of former APD Detective turned Private Investigator\/Massage Therapist, Richard \u201cDick\u201d Moonlight, who believes he might be responsible for the brutal slaying by knife of his illicit lover, the beautiful Scarlet Montana. The situation is made all the worse since Scarlet is the wife of Moonlight\u2019s boss, Chief of Detectives Jake Montana.<\/p>\n

Why does Moonlight believe he might be responsible?<\/p>\n

He\u2019s got a small fragment of a .22 hollow point round buried inside his brain, lodge directly up against his cerebral cortex. The result of a botched suicide attempt four years prior to the novel\u2019s start, an operation to remove the bullt frag would be too dangerous.<\/p>\n

But the bullet causes Moonlight lots of problems, the least of which are the occasional memory loss and his rational ability to tell right from wrong. The bullet frag also might shift at any moment, making coma and\/or sudden death, a very real possibility.<\/p>\n

Still, Moonlight has been trying to get his life together as of late.<\/p>\n

But when Scarlet begs him to make the trip over to her house late one rainy Sunday night to issue one of his \u201cmassages,\u201d he makes a big mistake by sleeping with her. Later, having passed out in her bed, he will be rudely awakened by a garage door opening and Jake\u2019s unexpected and very drunken homecoming. Making his impromptu escape out a top floor window, Moonlight will seek the safety of his home.<\/p>\n

Two hours later however, he will receive another unexpected visit from Jake Montana. This time the big Captain has sobering news to report. He\u2019s discovered his wife\u2019s mutilated body in her own bed. She\u2019s been murdered and now he needs the P.I. to investigate it in association with Albany \u2019s \u201covertaxed\u201d Special Independent Unit before I.A. pokes their nose into the affair. Moonlight takes a big step back. Is it possible he made a second trip to the Montana home-sweet-home and just has no recollection of it? Once there, did he perform a heinous crime on his part-time lover? Or is this some kind of set up by his former boss? Is it really Jake who is responsible for Scarlet\u2019s death? Does he wish for Moonlight to cover up his involvement, seal the case before Internal Affairs starts poking their nose into the situation?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s another problem too.<\/p>\n

Covering Moonlight\u2019s palms and the pads of his fingers are numerous scratches and cuts. Are these defensive wounds? Wounds he received when Scarlet put up a struggle? Or are they offensive wounds? Wounds he couldn\u2019t avoid when making his attack on Scarlet with a blade? The answer is not so simple since Moonlight has no idea where he acquired the wounds.<\/p>\n

Having no choice but to take on the mission (if only to cover his own ass), Moonlight can only hope the answers to his many questions point to his former boss and not himself.<\/p>\n