Haight St: A Crime Novel

by Pierre Ouellette

It’s over ten years since James Stone finished his stint in Bakersfield as a homicide detective and landed in the music business, where his golden ear serves him well. In 1967 Capitol Records dispatches him to San Francisco, a hotbed of drug-inspired musical originality – and a breeding ground for the unspeakable.Also exploring new business opportunities here is The King, a national-level drug trader keen to break into psychedelics. He has a flair for recruiting new talent, providing financing, and dealing imaginatively with competitors like acid kingpin Superspade.As Stone searches for breakout talent, a face from the past shows up at the Free Clinic where his doctor girlfriend, Christine, volunteers. Rhonda, tough and street-smart, is no longer the waif he rescued from a den of perverts and put on a bus out of Bakersfield ten years ago. She’s in trouble again. Rhonda is linked up with Larry, an up-and-coming acid dealer financed by The King. She stumbles on the gruesome aftermath of a clash between Larry and LSD-riddled Speedo, a brain-damaged ex-stockcar racer lethally obsessed with her.Meanwhile, hiding among the hippies is an angry battle-haunted Vietnam vet with explosive skills, just waiting for his moment. Ex-cop Stone is again entangled in murder, madness and mayhem. As the Summer of Love turns into a hallucinogenic nightmare, lives are on the line over $50,000 in missing drug money. Its transcendental fate ultimately becomes the stuff of supreme irony.

240 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 14, 2021