Book description
Chief Superintendent Kenworthy, now retired, is visiting his married
daughter in Florida. The visit is not wholly successful, for to the
unsettlement of retirement was added the disorientation of the American
scene, anxiety lest his daughter's marriage to a State policeman was in
low water, and concern that there might be truth in the allegations of
corruption made against his son-in-law. The scene changes with the
murder of the two prostitutes who had preferred the charges. When his
son-in-law disappears, Kenworthy moves into action, contacting the
Luther Boones I, II and III, a family who had policed a remote stretch
of the Everglades for three generations. As in other John Buxton Hilton
novels, the roots of the mystery are embedded in the past. Kenworthy
finds himself embedded in the past and listening to tales of the
cut-throat land boom of the 1920s when the Everglades were being
drained, of the world of gambling and protection, of the massive drug
traffic of contemporary South Florida, and of even newer, more ingenious
crimes. Two generations of Luther Boones have been outwitted by the man
behind the rackets. Could Luther Boone III manage things better?
Kenworthy soon has opportunity to go to work in his most dogged and
devious fashion. Neat plotting, vivid writing, excitement, and insight
into nasty circles - all are here. John Buxton Hilton was born in 1921
in Buxton, Derbyshire. After his war service in the army he became an
Inspector of schools, before retiring in 1970 to take up full-time
writing. Hilton wrote two books on language teaching as well as being a
prolific crime writer - his works include the Superintendent Simon
Kenworthy series and the Inspector Thomas Brunt series, as well as the
Inspector Mosley series as John Greenwood.
