“Oh, boy. I’ve heard this is not good --- girls coming into bars with you here, Mort, especially ones that look like models.”

So says ex-Secret Service agent Valentina “Vale” Marchant (introduced in 2022’s GUMSHOE OUTLAW), who is with Mortimer Angel and Maude “Ma” Clary, the Great Gumshoe’s boss, enjoying a drink (or a few of them) at a Reno bar when in walks tall, slender Ella Kassel, who hands a note to the barkeep to give to Mort.

"Complicated hairpin turns baffle the most sophisticated cartographer in GUMSHOE ON THE RUN. A whiz-bang dénouement leaves readers agape, catapulting Rob Leininger into the Superstar PI Hall of Fame."

As Ella came in, the TV news was about FBI deputy director Alden Ridel, who’s been missing for a week. Mort has an exasperating tendency to find bodies --- or body parts --- of famous missing people, so Ma glares at the note and says, “Burn it. Now.” No such luck. The note instructs Mort to come alone at four the next afternoon to an isolated VOR station in the desert. Mort Googles it: “VHF Omnidirectional Radio Range.” Huh. Never heard of it.

Breaking the Mort mold in the first chapter, Ridel drops in on Mort. Literally. Suddenly, the Great Gumshoe is being hunted by the FBI. Making matters worse, Mort has a history with the FBI. In GUMSHOE GONE, star FBI agent Ned Willis is certain Mort killed the person who murdered his fiancée, Jeri DiFrazzia --- detailed in GUMSHOE FOR TWO. But Willis’ evidence is highly suspect, and he ends up being sentenced to FBI purgatory in Butte, Montana. Mort learns that Willis died four months ago. The coroner’s report called it a suicide, but the place he did it was called a suicide room. Strange wording. Mort wonders if the FBI is offing its own, trying to frame him and make him truly mort?

Complicated hairpin turns baffle the most sophisticated cartographer in GUMSHOE ON THE RUN. A whiz-bang dénouement leaves readers agape, catapulting Rob Leininger into the Superstar PI Hall of Fame.

Author’s note: “The Gumshoe novels are humorous, fun, and deadly. They’re also R-rated (Risqué). Never X and most certainly not XXX or explicitly descriptive, but they are risqué. Life is good; life is supposed to be fun.”