Cipher of the Chemist - Astounding Exploits, #1

A dying man's coded message plunges Detective Ethan Fowler into a perilous clash between gangsters, government agents, and an emerald-eyed femme fatale. New York City, 1930. Detective Ethan Fowler expects a quiet dinner at his local diner. But when a fatally poisoned chemist stumbles inside, he thrusts cryptic papers into Ethan's hands with an ominous warning before collapsing. Ethan soon finds himself targeted by notorious arts smuggler and seductress Alta Rollins - AKA The Green Lady - who will stop at nothing to obtain the coded papers.
Aided by Agent David Singleton, Ethan works to decipher the formula and locate four powerful Japanese gargoyle statues coveted by underworld antiquities collectors. Dodging mobster attacks, hypnotic poisons, and Rollins' lethal charms, Ethan races across New York in a high-stakes game of cat and mouse. Can he crack the cipher's secrets before the next hit claims his life? Or will the Green Lady's hypnotic powers and strange drugs plunge the city into darkness forever?