This is a raucous road trip of a novel. Crumley teams up two of his established protagonists, Milo Milodragovitch, his Montana one-horse-town private eye, and C.W. Sughrue, a Texas brawler, on the trail of an embezzling banker and the one who sent a hit man to kill Sughrue. Hungry for retribution, the two blaze across Texas in a cherry-red El Dorado, sharing drugs and booze, and encountering a weird and wonderful set of characters along the way. The action is fast and violent, but the tone is always good humored.