WHEN WE LAST LEFT OUR HERO.....

...Charlie Cooke had gone crazy with rage after they found his partner and best friend Johnny Roberts dead. All signs pointed towards the biggest and most vicious crime boss Ice Falls had ever seen: James "Jimmy the Fish" Scagnetti. WIthout even a thought of a warrent, Charlie went after Scagnetti - head first - at the Palace Casino. People scattered in all directions as Charlie's .38 snub-nose sang the melancholy song of revenge to every Fish loyalist in the joint. He blasted every last one of Jimmy's Shadows and knocked Scagnetti out cold. By the time the blue-shirts got there, Scagnetti was in cuffs and Charlie was unconsious on the floor - riddled with lead. Five pints of blood and a called time-of-death later, Charlie decided he wasn't ready to call it quits. He stood up, bulled all the tubes and needles out of him, put on his fedora, and went back to work.

Normally, trying to get an arrest to stick to Scagnetti was a easy as trying to stick a wet noodle up a live tiger's behind. But Chief Jack McCormick and the slime ball soley responsible for keeping The Fish out of jail the last twenty years - Vinnie Videcci - were making a deal to keep Scagnetti in Thomasville Max for life. With the deal came a new boss in Ice Falls: Vinnie the Mouth.

Three years later and Scagnetti gets the sentence, and it's a doozy: Life at Thomasville. Now there's nothing standing in the way of Vinnie controlling the whole town. Except, of course, Det. Charlie Cooke ....

The Deal and The Descent are Volumes 3 and 4 of the four-part series: The Charlie Cooke Saga. It is a film-noir-style-hard-boiled-detective-fiction-crime-drama. Our hero, Charlie Cooke, is a gritty detective who strives to find veracity in a crooked city. Throughout parts 3 and 4, he struggles with dames, deals, deaths, Deuces, and other delusional dilemmas that start with the letter "D". Periodically, he conveys these conflicts through narration, often using ridiculous metaphors and irrelevant similes. The Deal and the Descent is a stylistic, and often cliché ridden, look at an era where the thin lines between right and wrong were easily rubbed-out.

Charlie Cooke is The Hero. A hard-boiled, conflicted detective with a heart of lead.

Jack McCormick is The Boss. A stressed Irish police chief with drinking and marital problems.

Vinnie Videcci is The Villain. An overweight, influential mobster with a shrewd sense of humor.....

Trixie Harmon is The Femme Fatale. A rarely distressed damsel with a classy attitude and legs to boot.

"Deuces" is The Crony. A shady criminal with a devil-may-care attitude and a butterfly knife he flips subconsciously.

Robert "Bobby" Roberts is The Kid. A respectable young cadet with a heart of gold. His late father was Charlie's partner.

Frangela "Frannie" Burkowsky is The Sweetheart. A trendy young waitress with a soft spot for detectives.

Rudy is The Patron. A scruffy customer at the diner.

And The Thug. A silent henchman who shadows Vinnie.