Pay or Play

Blackmail, sexual harassment, murder . . . and a missing dog: eccentric, eco-obsessed L.A. private eye Charlie Waldo is on the case in this quirky, fast-paced mystery. Paying a harsh self-imposed penance for a terrible misstep on a case, former LAPD superstar detective Charlie Waldo lives a life of punishing minimalism deep within the woods, making a near religion of his commitment to owning no more than One Hundred Things. At least, he´s trying to. His PI girlfriend Lorena keeps drawing him back to civilization - even though every time he compromises on his principles, something goes wrong. And unfortunately for Waldo, all roads lead straight back to L.A. When old adversary Don Q strongarms him into investigating the seemingly mundane death of a vagrant, Lorena agrees he can work under her PI license on one condition: he help with a high-maintenance celebrity client, wildly popular courtroom TV star Judge Ida Mudge, whose new mega-deal makes her a perfect target for blackmail. Reopening the coldest of cases, a decades-old fraternity death, Waldo begins to wonder if the judge is, in fact, a murderer - and if he´ll stay alive long enough to find out. Pay or Play is the third in the Charlie Waldo series, following Last Looks and Below the Line. Last Looks was turned into a major motion picture, starring Charlie Hunnam as the offbeat private investigator.