[Albert Samson 06] • Out of Time

Albert Samson, once described as the private eye combining 'the best moral qualities of the Continental Op and Lew Archer', feels life is looking good when he acquires two clients in an afternoon. The first, and eccentric old man living in an expensive apartment and obsessed with his home computer, asks him to investigate a young man suspected of running with a wild crowd. The second is a wealthy banker, Douglas A. Belter, whose wife has discovered that her birth certificate is a fake. For forty-eight years she'd believed herself to be the daughter of Ella and the late Earl Wilmott Murchison. Now she wonders if she has any identity at all. The latter case intrigues Samson and his investigation leads him, via dusty archives, a sentimental night club owner, the police and the press, to the 1930s and 40s and to an old murder. It also leads him to suspect that a recent 'natural' death is in face a cold-blooded killing.