This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design. In the neon crush of Times Square, master detective Nat Ridley is startled when his proud rival, Carl Lemberg, comes to him frightened and desperate. Lemberg's terror quickly proves justified: his brother, his uncle, and Ridley's former associate Dan Steele have all been murdered with a tiny dagger bearing the sign of the Tola, an ancient Mexican society once believed extinct. The killings point to a bitter struggle over Mexican oil lands near Rolamotaza, where disputed mineral rights, family greed, and ancestral claims have turned a business deal into a blood-soaked conspiracy. Ridley takes the case, only to lose Lemberg himself to a taxi murder hours later. Determined to expose the killers, he travels undercover to Texas and slips south under the name Bill Brice, carrying a pistol and a plan. In Paloma, amid jazz, bootleg liquor, and glittering danger, he infiltrates the Cordova Club, charms the room, and maneuvers into the orbit of the powerful El Capitan Martolo. When a mysterious letter arrives, Ridley steals it in a flash, drawing closer to the hidden network behind the double-dagger murders and the shadowy fight for oil, power, and survival.
