The estate of a wealthy photographer hires private detective Rocky Stonebrook to find someone. Whom do you want me to find? asks Stonebrook. The executrix and the probate attorney explain that in his will, the decedent, Jerry Roth, left one-fourth of his money to someone named Robert Johnson, of whom no one in the family or anyone among his colleagues or friends has ever heard. With the help of his trusty partner, Lauren Marlo, Stonebrook sets out to do the impossible.
Unlike the movies, this private detective agency has more than one client. So Stonebrook is also engaged to assist a defense counsel in an army court martial; and Lauren takes on the task of finding a retired lawyer to testify in a case where someone who signed a prenuptial agreement twenty years earlier now is getting divorced and wants the court to invalidate the prenup.
The Gripes of Roth is the fourth in the series featuring Rocky Stonebrook as the central character.
In the other three, Stonebrook is hired by the National Hit persons Society to locate the killer of a hit woman (Action); looks for someone in the Witness Protection Program (Behind the Curtain); and goes undercover on a merchant ship to check out allegations of murder on the high seas (Tossed Overboard). Sabio has also written a fifth novel, a nonviolent sci-fi book (not in the Stonebrook series) called 2358, named for the year in which the protagonist wakes up after having been vitrified (frozen).
