Rat City

Curt Colbert. Ugly Town, $15 (361pp) ISBN 978-0-9663473-5-7

It's Seattle in the 1940s, and pool-sharks, bookies, jazz musicians, drunken coroners, shady cops and street-smart PIs all jockey for position and try to stay alive. In Rat City: A Jake Rossiter & Miss Jenkins Mystery, Curt Colbert's first novel, Jake narrowly avoids death by shooting dead his assailant, Big Ed; when he tries to find out why Big Ed wanted him dead, Jake discovers a ring of corruption and crime that surprises even him.

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