Mark Coggins. The Immortal Game (1999) 309 pp.
August Riordan, a cynical jazz bass-playing San Francisco private eye, is hired by Silicon Valley multi-millionaire Edwin Bishop, an entrepreneur who has founded several highly successful software game companies. Bishop has developed a software program to play chess against human opponents, but before it is released, he discovers that the software has been stolen. Riordan’s search for the thief takes him through both the high-tech Silicon Valley and the underground S&M scene in San Francisco.