A young law professor is hired to clean up a city strangled by corruption
Nemo Crespi’s organization has a hand in everything from gambling rackets to hotels to newspapers. To combat him, the governor needs a special prosecutor he can trust, someone free of political ambitions . . . someone like John Conroy, a twenty-nine-year-old law professor as unlikely for the prosecutor job as anyone. Cynical, hardscrabble Conroy is reluctant to accept, until he realizes that the work will put his theory—that all power corrupts—to a welcome real-life test. It will be a formidable mission, and not just because of the caliber of the enemy. Conroy’s own father, a cop promoted to the role of chief investigator, has a close friend in Crespi’s ranks, and he knows his fair share of dirty secrets. As the investigation gains speed, Conroy and those closest to him will have to grapple with the full reach of the vicious syndicate. This ebook features an extended biography of Horace McCoy.
Horace Stanley McCoy (1897–1955) was an American novelist whose gritty, hardboiled novels documented the hardships Americans faced during the Depression and post-war periods. McCoy grew up in Tennessee and Texas; after serving in the air force during World War I, he worked as a journalist, film actor, and screenplay writer, and is author of five novels including They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1935) and the noir classic Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1948). Though underappreciated in his own time, McCoy is now recognized as a peer of Dashiell Hammett and James Cain. He died in Beverly Hills, California, in 1955.