Aaron Conners

Evil awakens. One man stumbles into its headlights. It's December 2042 and Tex Murphy, the last of the old-style PIs, has hit rock bottom. A run of tough luck forced him to relocate to the seedy side of town, then his wife ran off with the guy Tex hired to reupholster his furniture. Now he's left with no money, no prospects and no dignity...just some nicely-reupholstered office chairs and one last bottle of cheap bourbon. When Tex is hired out of the blue by a rich dowager, it seems too good to be true. A priceless statuette has been stolen from her. Getting paid to recover it may be just what Tex needs to get back on his feet. And it does...until the rug gets pulled out from under him. Tex's search for the missing statuette leads him through the shadowy back streets of post-apocalyptic New San Francisco and into a labyrinth of deceit, manipulation and murder. Who, or what, is the 'Moon Child'? Is there any truth to the rumors that an ancient evil, foretold by prophecy and worshiped by a centuries-old blood cult, has mysteriously reawakened? And can Tex stay sober long enough to pick up the pieces and put them together to solve the most dangerous puzzle of his life? The world needs a hero to stand against the forces of evil. Unfortunately, it will have to make do with Tex Murphy. And he'll need all his P.I. instincts and every ounce of the ol' Murphy charm to stop the ominous prophecies before they become a terrifying reality...and rob him of his next unemployment check.

Danger is like jello...there's always room for a little more. It's April 2043 and the seedy side of post-World War III New San Francisco is a radioactive dive, but P.I. Tex Murphy calls it home. With business slow, money tight and the women in Tex's life shipping out, this private dick is singing the lonesome gumshoe blues. Until one night at the Brew & Stew diner... A mysterious old gent hires Tex to find a friend who's gone missing. It doesn't seem like much of a case at first, but with a generous retainer of cash and Cubana cigars, that's fine by Tex. Unfortunately, he's never been very good at staying out of trouble and it doesn't take long for him to find some. There's a drop-dead gorgeous nightclub singer who may end up just plain dead...a serial killer who supposedly committed suicide a year earlier...and a package sent from the missing man, containing a Chinese puzzle box that no one can seem to open. Tex finds himself in the middle of one of history's greatest conspiracies. Secrets that have been locked away for almost a century are about to be revealed. Why now, after so many years? What does the puzzle box contain? Why is the most powerful agency in the U.S. government hunting down the missing man? And can Tex find him before they do? The stakes are high, the deck is stacked and, as always, Tex Murphy is low on chips. But with his excellent bluffing skills and occasional lucky streaks, he just might have a fighting chance. Pandora's Box has been reopened. Can Tex close it before it's too late?

From the author of "Tex Murphy and the Pandora Directive" and "Tex Murphy: Under a Killing Moon" comes the latest thrilling adventure in the series. Tex Murphy is an old-school P.I. living in the New San Francisco of 2043. He fancies himself hard-boiled, but is more like sunny-side up. He's also been known to get fried, scrambled and poached. He's just solved the biggest case of his life (so far) and actually got paid for it. After a romantic dinner with the lovely and elusive Chelsee Bando, Tex is in love, out of debt and on top of the world. What could possibly go wrong? When Tex wakes up, disoriented and head pounding, on the fire escape outside his office at the Ritz Hotel, he soon discovers that all his memories since that night with Chelsee have been erased. Years have passed and everything in Tex's life has changed. Old friends are hostile. Former enemies are now allies. And Chelsee is gone...maybe forever. Whoever did this could have given Tex a one-way ticket to zombie land by wiping his memory completely...but they didn't. There was something specific they wanted him to forget. But what? And who was behind it? The rival P.I. who was doing surveillance on Tex's office and turns up murdered? One of the mysterious characters racing to find a priceless collection of Nikola Tesla's documents and lost inventions? Or the shadowy organization that's made a fortune in cryonics - freezing (and, rumor has it, reanimating) dead bodies? Tex Murphy, the last of the old-school gumshoes, is on the case for himself this time. Motivated by lost love, revenge and the world's strongest coffee blend, Tex will need every bit of his questionable social skills, relatively quick thinking, blind luck and the ol' Murphy charm. Only by investigating his own past can Tex hope to regain his memory in time to solve the mysteries of the past and present and prevent a devastating future.