It begins in the small Iowa town of Steubenville, where a seemingly respectable citizen takes a head-over-heels tumble on a department store escalator. As if on cue, Cadillacs — 31 in all — start disappearing from lots in the San Francisco Bay area, as a team of scam artists use phone fraud, bank fraud, and pure criminal genius to do one California bank out of $1.3 million worth of Detroit’s finest.The bank wants those cars back, and turns to Daniel Kearny Associates to get it done. Rock-jawed, relentless Dan Kearny puts his best agents, as well as two new ones, on the case. It doesn’t take long for Kearny’s team to find out what they’re up against: Gyppos. Con artists, scammers, liars, thieves and dangerous charmers, Gypsies are one nation united in street crime. And since the escalator fall has mortally wounded their beloved King, they’ve decided to get to his funeral in Cadillac style. But there’s one more Cadillac to contend with: the shocking pink 1958 Cadillac ragtop convertible the dying leader insists on being buried in. The Gypsy who can get his hands on one is sure to be the next King... or Queen.When the tilt starts, it’s Gypsies 32, DKA O. But by the second inning the score changes. From San Francisco to Hawaii, from Florida to New York, it’s a matter of everybody scamming everybody in a cross-country duel of wits and nerves. And the action won’t let up until both repomen and Gyppos reach the dying Gypsy King — and the ultimate scam of all.

It’s not the best of times for the repo men and skip tracers of DKA. The big boss has been thrown out of the house by his wife, landing, for the foreseeable future, in Larry Ballard’s apartment. Ken Warren has fallen into the grasp of the sexually predatory mother of a multimillionaire computer geek. Bart Heslip has gone undercover in the Tenderloin, wearing a nose ring, a leather vest, and an attitude. O’B is up in redwood country, getting rained on. And Ballard, for a change, has met a woman who’s a match for him.But while the streets of San Francisco sizzle and DKA’s best snag repos that range from luxury cars to truck tires to the electronic equipment of a talentless heavy metal band, someone is out to punch the agency’s collective ticket for good.It begins with the Mafia-style slaying of a flamboyant union leader. It leads toward a prominent San Francisco money man and a violent feud over a half-billion-dollar computer chip. As the DKA agents slap down REPO ON SIGHT slips, they find themselves drawn into the dark heart of big-city corruption — backed by big shotguns, big money, and big madness.Only Joe Gores could have created these true-to-life bit players, barrooms, boardrooms, and street scenes. And only Joe Gores could have created a story like this — gritty, funny, fast-moving, and unforgettable.

On a Hollywood studio lot a dancing bear does a little pickpocketing on the side. In Son Francisco the repo men of Daniel Kearny Associates ore on a nonstop campaign to repossess twenty-seven classic cars from twenty-seven people who will go to classic lengths to keep them. And in a fortress in the Big Sur wilderness a rich man vows to steal an ultraprecious collectors’ item. Soon the dancing bear, DKA, and the millionaire will entangle in a twisted plot of betrayal and murder.It all starts when the dancing bear actually a full-blooded Gypsy in o fur suit — is unceremoniously killed. Now the police are searching for the bear’s beautiful Gypsy wife, Yana. At the request of the Gypsy King, whose honorable world of thievery does not tolerate murder, the men and women of DKA also look for her. But the seductive, ever-changing Yana is eluding them all, and working on a new grift of her own.Meanwhile, the tribe raises cosh for a moss pilgrimage to the holy city of Rome — just in time for the Jubilee celebration and a feast of tourists. And while a crime wave is erupting in California, while the cops are distracted by their hunt for Yana and every head is turned in the wrong direction, a helicopter is beating its way to Big Sur, carrying the greatest scam of all.In this sexy hilarious tale action and seduction cops, robbers, and repo men, Joe Gores takes us into a shifting subculture of ancient rituals and cutting-edge cons. With one mystery at its core and another unfolding at its end, Joe Gores latest and most entertaining novel yet should come with a warning: Enjoy the ride, but hold on to your wallet...