[Alex Novalis 02] • The Girl From Nowhere

"I'm being followed," she said. "I think he wants to kill me."

When a panicked young woman slips her hand into his in 1960s Chinatown, just before a knife-wielding stalker attacks, private eye Alex Novalis finds his cherished hard-boiled persona threatened by a romantic streak that has a habit of getting him into trouble. Sandy Smollett is triple trouble: a stripper who comes on like the girl next door and has a way of bending the truth to suit any occasion. Novalis finds her irresistible.

It doesn't help that her mobster boss, a sleazy politico, and an attorney brandishing an envelope stuffed with cash all warn Novalis that Sandy is strictly off limits. Things don't get easier when Novalis finds a dead man in her apartment, or when they both are kidnapped by homicidal thugs. Who is Sandy Smollett? For once she tells the truth when she tells Novalis, "I'm the Girl from Nowhere."

Christopher Finch's sophisticated sequel to *Good Girl, Bad Girl* unfolds against the background of a volatile era of social upheaval.