Growing up on a small farm in eastern Oregon, USA, Finch Redburn, in his limited free time away from chores, developed an interest in American and British detective stories. Determined to obtain a private investigator's license, he moved west across his state to Eugene. There, in 1976, he opened for business, combining the pragmatic tough-guy approach of Philip Marlowe with a tinge of Sherlock Holmes. Dressed in colorful 1940s-era suits and fedora, the strapping Redburn, assisted by his ex-gymnast secretary, Karen Bottomsly, sort out missing person cases, stolen company secrets and murder in a glamorous jazz club.

S. Duncan Reid is the author of Cal Tjader: The Life and Recordings of the Man Who Revolutionized Latin Jazz (McFarland, 2013), the first biography of the legendary bandleader/vibraphonist and the expanded second edition of same (McFarland, 2020). In addition, Mr Reid has written about jazz for magazines such as Wax Poetics (United States) and Jazz Podium (Germany). He currently lives in California.