Pale Shadow

Autumn, 1940--Linda Blanc is found tortured to death in her Gentilly home. New Orleans' Police Sergeant Israel Daggett can't make anything of the black woman's death until a Treasury Agent arrives on the scene. He lets Daggett know that Linda was the girlfriend of a bootlegger-turned counterfeiter, one Luis Martinez. Daggett's first find Luis.
Meanwhile, on the other side of town, Wesley Farrell is looking for Luis Martinez for his own reasons.
Luis is really in hot water. Not only are the cops and Farrell giving chase, but he's on the run from a blonde Spaniard named Santiago Compasso, the boss of the counterfeiting gang. Luis has run off with the key to the operation--the painstakingly constructed plates that produce twenty- and fifty-dollar bills so good they've got the boys at Engraving and Printing jealous. Compasso is worried, not only because his operation is loused up, but because he has someone of his own to answer to....
Now Farrell's in a contest with both the police and Compasso to find his amigo and discover the reason behind the doublcross--if a mysterious unseen assassin doesn't get there ahead of him.