Mike Hepp is the tennis pro for the Pasadena Racketeers. When his ex-girlfriend Emily gets beat-up by her new beau Paullie?a cocaine dealer supplied by a Mexican cartel?Mike gets called in to save her. Paullie mistakes Mike for a cop. They fight. The Sheriffs arrive to break it up. Emily flees with Mike to his house, but she disappears unexpectedly the next day. Mike fears she has gone back to Paullie. But weeks later, when she is still missing, law enforcement suspects Mike of her kidnapping and possible murder. When the Racketeers suddenly close down, a friend loans Mike her empty beach house for the summer in private Surfside Colony. He becomes involved with a married woman, whom he thinks is divorced. As his friend Duke later points out: "Can't you find yourself a normal girlfriend?" Can he? Or will the married woman's husband or the Mexican cartel's hitman gun down that damn cop guy before the Sheriffs and the FBI send Mike to prison for the rest of his life?

Mark Barkawitz has earned awards for his fiction, poetry, essay, and screenwriting. His work has appeared in newspapers, magazines, literary journals and anthologies, and on dozens of websites. He had IMDb feature film credits for The Killing Time (New World Pictures) and Turn of the Blade (Mark Bark-NorthStar Ent.). His novels include Feeling Lucky: A Pandemic Novel, Giant Killers, The Dog with the Opposable Thumb, and Full Moon Saturday Night. He lives with his wife, has two grown children, and a dog in Pasadena, CA.