Now he bangs out honky-tonk for drunks in a dive in Philadelphia. But then two people walk into Eddie's life--the first promising Eddie a future, the other dragging him back into a treacherous past.Shoot the Piano Player is a bittersweet and nerve-racking exploration of different kinds of loyalty: the kind a man owes his family, no matter how bad that family is; the kind a man owes a woman; and, ultimately, the loyalty he owes himself. The result is a moody thriller that, like the best hard-boiled fiction, carries a moral depth charge.

    The pain in my side was bad now, but you should have seen the other two guys. They felt no pain. They were dead. I walked carefully into the bleak morning away from all the warmth in my life - from Peggy and the suitcase full of money - but damned if I didn't walk with something like pride. My name is Mike Ballard. I had been a bad man and a worse cop, but this thing that I was doing now was good.

    Now he was a nobody, bumming around Mexico. Lost, lonely, hungry for hope, he was a pushover for a bordertown B-girl - the perfect fall guy for a lethal frame-up.LINDAShe was born with the morality gene missing. As beautiful, as inviting, as treacherous as the sea around her, Linda is one of the most compelling women yet created by John D. MacDonald.