Marv Slocum shook her hand. She wiped it on her skirt. Thirty seconds later, her car exploded. It was that kind of week. The most unlucky private investigator in Los Angeles is back—and the body count is just getting started. Marv Slocum survived the Consortium. Barely. Now he's trying to rebuild his life in a strip mall office between a yoga studio and an artisanal donut shop. New desk. New chair. Same sweaty hands that make every handshake a biohazard. He's interviewing assistants. The first one watches him accidentally set her resume on fire. The second one's chair collapses. The third one—a retired LAPD homicide detective with thirty-two years on the job—seems perfect. She explodes in the parking lot before her first day. Welcome to the Meridian Codex. A medieval manuscript illuminated by Medici monks. A cipher hidden in the margins for six hundred years. Nazi gold—forty billion dollars—sleeping in accounts across Switzerland, Argentina, and the Vatican. The Codex is the key. And a dying Mexican cartel boss just put it up for sale to the highest bidder. Now every killer on three continents wants it. The Japanese Yakuza have sent their most ruthless operative. The Italian 'Ndrangheta —Calabrian mafia, old money, older grudges—believe they're owed. Los Sangre Azteca is fracturing from within, its lieutenants dying one by one, black feathers left on their bodies by a ghost called El Cuervo . They all think Marv has the key to the Codex. They're all wrong. They're all going to try to kill him anyway. What follows is a relentless, explosive, utterly unhinged descent into chaos that spans from the mansions of Calabasas to a three-day war inside a Burbank Costco. There will be car bombs . Cartel assassins . A firefight in a tire section that leaves three criminal organizations bleeding out next to the all-season radials. A new assistant named June Park who served three tours in Iraq and might be the most dangerous person Marv has ever met. There will be a stolen tank. There will be Huey Lewis and the News playing on the radio at the worst possible moment—every single time—because the universe has a sick sense of humor and Marv Slocum is the punchline. Marv doesn't find trouble. Trouble finds him. Then it explodes. He's not a hero. He's a sweaty, divorced, chain-smoking mess who can't catch a break and can't walk away. People die around him—good people, bad people, people who just shook his hand at the wrong moment. He survives on dumb luck, cheaper bourbon, and a stubborn refusal to stay down. The criminal underworld has a nickname for him now. The Sweaty King. No Clean Hands is a high-octane action thriller with the dark humor of Carl Hiaasen , the relentless pacing of Lee Child , the criminal underworld complexity of Don Winslow , and the gleeful ultraviolence of a Tarantino fever dream . It's organized crime mayhem meets noir comedy —a page-turner that grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go until the last bullet casing hits the floor. Perfect for fans of: Jack Reacher. Charlie Parker. Burke. Myron Bolitar. Anyone who likes their hardboiled crime with a side of chaos, their antiheroes soaked in flop sweat, and their action sequences completely off the rails. If you love: action thrillers, crime thrillers, noir fiction, cartel thrillers, black comedy, Los Angeles noir, private investigator mysteries, or books where things explode and you can't stop turning pages— this is your next obsession. The Marv Slocum Series: Book 1: The Meridian Job Book 2: No Clean Hands The disaster who wouldn't die. The enemies who keep trying. The paper towels that started a war.