This Dark Embrace

Lori McLeod is a librarian with the Toronto Public Library.

This novel is set in 1930s Los Angeles. After a series of dead-end jobs
in his native Toronto, Walter McDumont makes his way westward to
California, where he gets a job as a cab driver. Walter’s life changes
dramatically when the writer Raymond Chandler steps into his cab.
Raymond asks Walter to help him with some research for his next book: a
gritty kind of detective fiction that will say something about the times
and world in which they live. Walter’s decision to assist Raymond
leads him into a relationship with Penelope Bronson, the daughter of a
wealthy banker. A secret from the Bronsons’ past resurfaces and
threatens to destroy them.

Several years ago, Paul Stuewe completed an unfinished novel by Hugh
Garner. It featured Walter McDumont and was called Don’t Deal Five
Deuces. In This Dark Embrace, a prequel to that novel, Stuewe
successfully re-creates the hardships faced by young men like McDumont
in the 1930s. Above all, This Dark Embrace is an action-filled crime
story with a hero who battles thugs, blackmailers, and corrupt police to
protect the woman he loves.