A hard winter rain

the long version

"Someone walked up to Joe "Shoe" Schumacher's best friend, Patrick O'Neill, in a Vancouver restaurant and shot him dead. It looks like a professional hit, but who would want O'Neill dead? Was it, as the police believe, a "settling of accounts"? Was it Victoria, O'Neill's beautiful but damaged wife? Or was it O'Neill's boss, industrialist William Hammond, with whom O'Neill had a falling-out and with whom Victoria had once had a short-lived affair? Former cop, chauffeur, and bodyguard Joe Shoe sets out to find Patrick's killer, and along the way he uncovers dark secrets going back years - secrets some people would kill to keep."--Jacket.