Prince of Snakes

John Standard is a discredited newspaper reporter living in a seedy Portland, Oregon apartment house run by a former circus midget, turned Web site designer. A freak accident cost him his job, wife and home, leaving him to scratch out a hardscrabble living as a freelance writer. On a hot summer night Standard receives a tip that could bring him a few bucks from a tabloid newspaper. But what starts out as the murder of a seemingly harmless security guard eventually leads to a political conspiracy involving a reclusive billionaire with unusual sexual tastes, a unprincipled lobbyist, a pair of ineffectual politicians, and a beautiful party girl. Along the way, Standard tracks down an incriminating manuscript, plays cat-and-mouse with an inept homicide detective and becomes a suspect in three murders, one of which sends him on a reckless search for revenge and redemption that ends in a fatal confrontation with the … Prince of Snakes.