A detective. A millionaire. A millionaire's wife. A mistress. Hijinks and tragedy ensue. Set in the late 1930s in Wayzata, a rural, resort suburb of Minneapolis, Detective Carroll LaRue has quit his badge, picked up stakes and put a haunted past in Hollywood behind him -- that, and his fellow officers of the LAPD kept mistaking him for a perp. LaRue has exchanged hilltops and orange groves for a hardscrabble, hand-to-mouth existence in the blue-gray Midwest. Taking dirty pictures through windows, even if the people aren't movie stars? It might not be sexy, but it's a living. "Wayzata" pays homage -- hell, it outright steals -- from the Holy Trinity of pulp fiction writers: Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and James V. Cain. Funny, tough, with chapters built to be read in airports, bus depots, and train stations. Or performed at family gatherings.