Book Description

Lacy Lockington is “one thoroughly bewildered six-foot-one, 205-pound, 48-year-old ex-police detective with the damnedest case of snakebite he’d ever heard of.” He cruises the lower depths of Chicago in his weathered Pontiac, seeking some comfort from healthy dollops of Martell’s and from Edna Garson, the part-time cashier at Easheski’s Liquor Emporium. Lockington is entitled to a mild case of paranoia: he’s still trying to make sense of the knifing-murder of his true girlfriend, Julie Masters, when in the space of about a week, he tangles with four viscious miscreants and shoots them dead_pretty much in self defense. Stella Starbright, hard-hitting columnist for the Morning Sentinel, takes vigorous exception to Lockington’s action_in bold print. Then she walks into his life in person. “She was five-six or so, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and cuter than a termite’s night shirt...” Like that. Erika Elwood, nom de plume, Stella Starbright. Despite taking him to task, she presents the possibility of pleasant distraction for Lockington_until some of the other ladies who have written the column start turning up dead, and Lockington is quickly considered numero uno suspect... “Spencer’s Chicago crime novels [are] rather like Chandler filtered through Perelman.” —Booklist “Spencer delivers an earthy, hard-to-put-down yarn... combines humor and suspense until the last page.” —Sacramento Union Ross H. Spencer was born in Hughart, West Virginia and raised in Youngstown, Ohio. During World War II, he served with the 37th Infantry Division on New Georgia, on Bougainville, and in the Philippines. Following the war, he moved to Chicago to be near the Chicago Cubs, the ball club of his choice since 1932. He served again, this time with the Air Force during the Korean Emergency or “whatever it was.” Ross H. Spencer was the father of three wonderful daughters and the proud husband of Shirley, “the most beautiful lady on earth.” In 1987, he returned to Youngstown, Ohio, where he spent the remaining 11 years of his life.