Flip Your Wig

A decomposing corpse in a Halloween mask is the morning wake-up call for Assistant Inspector Henry Nash and his partner, Inspector Ross Belcher. The detectives are disarmed by the ghastly sight, but find themselves further discombobulated by a compromised crime scene. A jittery traffic cop discharged his weapon after being spooked, then loses his last meal adjacent to the deceased. Nash has only just begun to shed his last hangover, but this scene has him ready to resume the next bender.

The victim has been dead for a number of days, the victim of a brutal bludgeoning. The decedent had also received a draft notice. Unfortunately, his early demise might have precluded an inevitable death in a needless war on the other side of the world. The year is 1966, the scene is San Francisco and the revolutionary days are just beginning. Nash and Belcher are not confined to the one case, they have a possible second homicide that needs to be investigated as well, with the difference being that there is no body….yet.

The city of San Francisco is buzzing with activity, the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood being overrun by the young and aimless. The Beatles are set to play Candlestick Park, but the “Bigger than Jesus” comment by lead singer John Lennon has brought controversy and threats to their approaching performance. Nash’s investigation into the Halloween mask victim assumes new depth when an interview with a witness ends in gunfire. The more clues into the victim’s life are matched by more questions about his grim demise.

Who killed the victim and why? Was he an innocent victim or involved in something murky? What is his connection to the famed Fab Four from Liverpool? Is there another body lurking in the shadows of the “Golden City”? Who is taking potshots at Nash and attempting to silence witnesses? The mysteries will only deepen as the reader plunges headfirst into a head trip of a read.

Flip Your Wig is not your average Detective story. The men at the center of the story, Nash and Belcher are experienced police, but the world they are pulled into verges on surreal. They are war veterans now staring down a different kind of battle. The intricate twists and turns of the plot make for an intense experience worth embarking upon. Author Roy Chaney (The Ragged End of Nowhere) offers a view into a world on the precipice of chaos, pre-Summer of Love but glimpses of Helter Skelter.