Philip Marlowe meets Redwall in this superior adult noir tale, where all the characters are animals, fighting for survival in the city underneath the humans. Down these mean streets a beast must walk... In the solar cities of the future, the humans relax in the sun and the animals work in the shadows. Genetically engineered Little Helpers, serving humanity--unseen, unheard. Meet Skotch. Raccoon, PI--yours for a few buttons as long as the job isn't too illegal, whatever that means. A mouse has gone missing. Normally this wouldn't raise any hackles, nor any alarms, but this mouse has something that everyone seems to want, though nobody appears particularly eager to say what that something is. The fee is good--perhaps too good. Certainly not something Skotch can easily turn down. If only Skotch can work out where the mouse is hiding, what he's hiding, and why his secrets are upsetting a lot of animals caught up in the Green City wars.