The man who never returned

Judge Joe Crater's disappearance in 1930 spawned countless conspiracy theories and captured the imagination of a nation caught in the grip of The Depression.

Fifteen years later, Fintan Dunne, the detective encountered in Quinn's novel Hour of the Cat, recently retired and bored, answers a summons to New York where he is asked to solve the old case for a newspaper magnate interested in making a profit.

Dunne confronts haphazard investigating, aggrieved participants and a grieving spouse as he travels from New York to Los Angeles and Havana, untangling decades-old clues in an attempt to solve the mystery still baffling America.