The wrong place at the wrong time, a moment of weakness, an ironic twist of fate -- these are all things by which jazz pianist Simon Floyd measures his life. Now dead over seventy years and acting the part of super-hero Mister Grey, Simon wants nothing more than a return to some semblance of his old life. Even if it risks the safety of his friends and fellow heroes in the Protectorate. Enter Augustus Dei -- shadowy power broker with near-limitless power. Thought to be nothing more than a dark whispered fairy-tale told by occultists and lunatics, he has come to Cobalt City with a singular purpose -- to help Simon with his unique problem. But is the reluctant hero willing to pay the cost required to get back what was taken from him by the barrel of a gun seven decades ago? And who can predict what chain of events might have been set up by the mischievous madman with millennia to plan? Book Two of the Protectorate series, Cobalt City Blues is an epic novel of alternate realities, loss, redemption, jazz, super-heroes, and what it means to be human.