This was the third and last of Schorr's loving parody of the pulp detectives in his Simon Jaffee/Red Diamond series. In this no holds barred, no punches pulled thriller former cab driver Simon Jaffee, or "Red Diamond, 1940's Private Eye" and tough guy as he believes himself to be, meets up with his former wife Milly (who's suing him for divorce), his genius All-American son Sean (who's searching for his underage slut runaway sister, and wants dad's help)and a host of music industry moguls and rock stars who are worried that someone seems to be methodically murdering them one by one. The irony of all this is vividly conveyed by author Schorr, who paints a sympathetic and believable picture of "Red" who refuses to believe either his son or ex wife's lawyer, but still helps the boy while trying to guard a group of obnoxious, spoiled, male rock stars. All throughout of course he's always on the lookout for his beloved moll "Fifi" and the evil "Rocco" criminal mastermind. The only bad part of this book is that Schorr stopped writing the series with it, but read it and judge whether or not he did well by his hard boiled multi-personality hero.

When life is rough, NY cabdriver Simon Jaffe loses himself in all the classic old detective novels, the "pulps". But on a bad day, when his nagging wife sells his book collection while he's not looking, and when the streets of New York offer him one of his worst days ever, Simon Jaffe ceases to exist after a nervous collapse in front of three dead bodies...and in his place stands Red Diamond, Private Eye.

This book is not in any way a spoof of Hammett or Chandler's works; once Jaffe transforms into ultimate toughguy Red Diamond, his investigations read much like an actual Philip Marlowe casefile. The tone is generally dead serious, the body count is high, and anything fancy-looking on the surface is probably rotten to the core while ensconced in phony high-society, greed-ridden big-business, or the cardboard world of film-making.

"Red Diamond's" cases classify more as underworld adventures. When Jaffe becomes his favourite pulp hero, his jaded bravado and total confidence get him accidently connected with some hoods almost right away. This is because the man who was Simon Jaffe now usurps Red Diamond's entire fictional past, and so sounds like a veteran PI to the world. Later, the novel shifts gears as Red Diamond not-surprisingly ends up in LA, trying to track down a missing woman and some stolen paintings. Trouble is, the missing woman is Fifi, a character from all the Red Diamond novels that Simon Jaffe used to read, so this new Red Diamond spends time searching for someone who doesn't even exist.

However, there really is a missing woman to be found...

The puzzle content of the book is lightweight and transparent, even in a subgenre where readers want more action than red herrings. But the book is quite endearing because of the fast pace, and Jaffe/Diamond's insistence on trying to locate fictional characters that he believes are just around the next corner--both Fifi, and crimeboss Rocco, who, in Red's mind, is manipulating all skullduggery from deep behind the scenes. Because Jaffe/Diamond manages to get embroiled in actual crimes that do need solving, it's intriguing to see him forge ahead and tackle them while also going on what amounts to a nightmarishly ridiculous quest to find Fifi and confront Rocco.

Raymond Chandler's true flair for taking a cynical look at a place like LA is not quite present in this Mark Schorr echo, although there is a memorable scene later in the book, at a movie-producer's home, with lots of slimey, puffed-up celebrity-types who make this one of the most nauseating parties I've ever read about. But if Schorr is not as interested in writing the bitter, searing condemnations of human hypocrisy that Chandler let fly in his character's longest speeches, or in their most jaded thoughts, then that is partly due to Schorr's slightly different agenda: showing Simon Jaffe slip into a world of self-delusion that makes him accomplish more in a few weeks than he had in his whole previous life. The suggestion seems to be that there is a fine line between reading to escape, and escaping through madness. Alas, Schorr, with his slick, fast-moving style, does miss an opprotunity to fully investigate what has happened to Simon Jaffe--hence the three-star rating.

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