Author Description

Roy Hoopes is a career journalist in Washington, DC, and the author of Cain, the Edgar Award-winning biography of James M. Cain. His first novel is an historical detective tale featuring James M. Cain and H. L. Mencken as two Baltimore journalists. They are investigating the deaths and sex scandals in 1923 Harding-administration Washington, DC in the season before the big Teapot Dome scandal breaks. There is a remarkable relevance of 1920s scandals to today's political environment, but that remains a backdrop. Mencken and Cain, two bright literary men playing Holmes and Watson, take the train to DC to get the real scoop. They drink a lot, meet a mysterious sexy redhead named Roxy, a rogue named Gaston B. Means, and get a lot more than they bargained for. They don't solve a crime, but with hard-boiled enthusiasm they expose some of the roots of the malaise of our capital. All the speaking roles are real historical characters.