Publisher's Weekly
The versatile inventor of the La-La Land and Jack Hatch series, Campbell here features his other hero, Jim Flannery of the Edgar-winning The Junkyard Dog. Living according to the Chicago Democratic principle, ''a favor for a favor,'' involves Jim in occasional charitable illegalities. After his political mentor, Chips Delvin, is committed to Larkspur Rest Home by a distant cousin, Jim is refused admittance and must sneak in. Finding Chips hallucinating and neglected, Jim asks another patient to report anything that could empower authorities to close down the ''rest'' home. But the patient is later found drowned in Larkspur's duck pond, a prelude to fearsome, as well as vastly amusing, events. In the end, having relied on another hallowed local custom, the ''get-back,'' Jim is satisfied that he has outwitted nasty conspirators .