Street Justice: A Smokey Dalton Novel

The Chicago Seven Conspiracy trial and the murder of Black Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark provide the backdrop for Nelscott’s gritty seventh Smokey Dalton novel (after 2006’s Days of Rage). In early 1970, Dalton struggles to make a living as an unlicensed Chicago PI and to parent his (unofficially) adopted 11-year-old son, Jimmy. A frantic phone call from his son’s friend, Keith Grimshaw, brings Dalton to the Starlite Hotel, where Keith’s 13-year-old sister, Lacey, has been lured and attacked. When Dalton tracks the assailant, he discovers that Lacey is far from the only victim of the Outfit, a mob-based group that preys on girls from a nearby school while police and politicians turn a blind eye. Dalton seeks help from a variety of sources who try to warn him off, but when things look hopeless, he finds unlikely allies. Dalton’s hard won small victory vividly illustrates a turbulent period of our recent cultural history. (Mar.)