I lit a cigarette and exhaled into the dark wind. Legendary rats kept red-eyed vigil in the tall palms lining Sunset Boulevard. Huge crows - more admirable than the rats, and some much older than me - hopped and perched on the edges of crumbling office buildings.

Frank Yellowflower is part Native American, part classic shamus solving movie mysteries at the dawn of Hollywood's second Golden Age.

The sixty-year life span of the crow fascinates me. What do they think of human progress in the latter half of the twentieth century? Were some of them here when stars trouped into the Garden of Allah or sipped champagne at the Hollywood Hotel? Or does the crow use his allotted time more wisely, winging around the world?

I headed up Vine to the famous corner where no one was ever discovered. High on a windowsill of the Equitable Building one of my shadow friends cawed three times. No betrayal here, I thought. I heard a distant reply as I ground my cigarette into the sidewalk to the left of a forgotten radio star.

Yellowflower is a collection of short detective stories by Rich La Bonté, author of Many Teeth and The Greater Future.