From the second Roy starts the engine of the Oldsmobile, with his partner Bunny by his side – and perhaps even lights a cigarette – an unknown author, Dan Marlowe, sets in motion an intense plot that doesn't stop until the last line. The sun is shining on Phoenix, the scorched vegetation of Arizona is stained with cheap whiskey. A large fortune has been robbed from the bank branch in town. The partners in the robbery decide to split up. Roy is injured during the escape, looking for a doctor who won't turn him in, and Bunny sends him his share of the loot in biweekly installments. When the payments stop coming, Roy sets out on a quest to find his lost partner and money. But his path becomes much more complex than a routine detective chase: we descend with the character to the remote outskirts of the United States, to the depths of the criminal world, to the bowels of the loneliness that comes to a man whose fate is to escape. In short, sharp sentences like a butcher's knife, Marlowe writes about bars, relationships, inns, shady hotels, and abandoned houses. A wild style, a thick, dark landscape. The author does not judge Roy's character, even though she is emotionless and immoral in the conformist sense. An extraordinary book that cannot be compared to others.