Booze is big money, not only for the supply chain, but for Uncle Sam who collects premium excise taxes off each gallon sold. That’s why when counterfeit brand names start cutting into the market for the legitimate stuff, the Treasury Department takes particular notice.

The stuff in Drink With the Dead is good. Maybe near as good as the real thing. Based on the volume and quality there must be a major operation behind it—well funded and well hidden.

The Agent-In-Charge of the Treasury’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Unit for Northern California, Leonard Purvis, assigns John Levangie to find out who’s running it and where it’s located. Levangie poses as a newspaperman and begins asking questions. He has a photographic memory and keeps all his leads and evidence in his head. Trouble is, when he’s killed, he doesn’t leave any clues about what he’s learned.

His murder is covered up and ruled an accidental death by the local authorities. The boss, Purvis, ain’t buying it, and sends in Konrad Jensen to investigate both Levangie’s death and the agent’s original assignment. Jensen poses as a private operator hired by Levangie’s kinfolk to disprove or validate the official accidental death finding.

Jensen is a tough, live wire who leads with aggression and apologizes not at all. He soon embroils himself in the action, and trouble ensues as the pages zip by. Jensen makes good progress, but only through considerable wear-and-tear and high-stakes endangerment. There’s a woman too, and she’s a doozy.

John M. Flynn, writing as Jay Flynn, delivers a fast-paced espionage mystery. Its protagonist is not unlike its author according to Flynn’s biography, written by Bill Pronzini for mysteryfile.com—and Pronzini knew the guy.