Dorie Lennox is a newly-minted private detective in Kansas City, Missouri, just as war is breaking out in Europe in 1939. These two novels follow Dorie's adventures through the corrupt back alleys of the city, from jazz clubs to meatpacking plants, in her $25 Packard with bullet holes in the trunk. Dorie is damaged goods, a veteran of reform school and family tragedy, like many children of the Depression. But her boss, a Brit with ruined lungs, has no choice to send her out on the streets with her switchblade, tailing girlfriends and wayward daughters, trying to make the world safe again.