Blackmail at Wrigley Field

James Murray is a young man with a dream -- he wants to be a writer just like his idol, Dashiell Hammett. He pens his first novel while working as a clerk at a swank downtown department store. He writes his second while working at a famous movie studio turning his first novel into a screenplay. His third novel chronicles his adventures trying to find a kidnapped scientist.

And now the fourth, and perhaps most dangerous adventure, brings him perilously close to someone who is blackmailing baseball players, threatening to take their money and expose their secrets. But James has other troubles: he’s not done very well since his girlfriend left him to pursue her own career. He’s fallen on difficult times and fallen hard. Can he help himself as he tries to help his new friends discover the identity of the blackmailers?

“Blackmail at Wrigley Field” -- like its predecessors “Abduction at Griffith Observatory,” "Sabotage at RKO Studio" and "Murder at Eastern Columbia" -- is unlike any other book you've read: Not a single novel, it's two parallel novels, featuring two heroes, working two mysteries in two different versions of 1930s Los Angeles. Join James and his alter ego as they each try to find the person behind the blackmail. His hard-boiled alter ego -- neither a private detective nor a police officer: just someone "who wants to help" -- needs to find out why ballplayers keep getting threatened and who might be behind it all.

Along the way, they encounter a rich cast of characters including a handsome young baseball player who’s been leading a secret life, a girl reporter with her own agenda, a hardworking man from China who lost his family in the influenza epidemic, a young deacon, a man with a drinking problem who might have the answer, a mysterious girl from Italy who harbors a tragic secret, an unsavory gangster with whom they have crossed paths before, and the beautiful girl who works at a boarding house who might be the one they’re looking for.

“Blackmail at Wrigley Field” is filled with twists and turns, leading to a final showdown in a spectacular mansion high above the city in the Hollywood Hills.

Come along for the ride in this, the fourth James Murray mystery: the story of a young man who dreams of something better.