From Donald Westlake, author of the hard-biting Parker novels (as Richard Stark), comes the story of Tim Smith, the local private eye of a small town in upstate New York. He's friends with all the big men in town like the City Council and the Mayor and happens to also have dirt on them. He has no particular inclination to use any of it either, that is, until someone tries to kill him one evening, spurred on by paranoia that Smith will squawk to a moralizing political organization rolling in to cleanup the governmental corruption in town. Now Smith must track down who among his "friends" wants him dead before they succeed in shutting him up! - Summary by Ben Tucker