Pearls Before Fine (a short mystery from the Psychic Barber literary universe)

By Phillip Mottaz

A short mystery about veteran private eye Malcolm Fine, one of the colorful side characters featured in the novel 'The Murderous Haircut of the Mayor of Bel Air.'

Set almost a month before the events of that book, here Malcolm faces his greatest challenge yet: trying to appear as a legitimate private investigator to fulfill a legal, taxable obligation.

He considers bailing on the PI game entirely, but gets pulled back in by an old colleague who offers what sounds like a simple stakeout job. Few things go simply in Malcolm's world, and he's pushed to the brink of giving up the life entirely. Maybe he's not cut out for this kind of work.

(This also contains a teaser "clip" from the full novel, The Murderous Haircut of the Mayor of Bel Air, the first in the Psychic Barber Mystery series, and a fun amateur sleuth story that's one part "The Long Goodbye," dabs of "Blanche on the Lam" and "Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie" with just a little X-Men mixed in, too.)