A Negro and an Ofay (The Tales Of Elliot Caprice) by Danny Gardner

A Negro and an Ofay

(The Tales of Elliot Caprice)

by 

Danny Gardner

On the run for killing two crooked cops, Chicago PD Detective Elliot Caprice finds himself in a jailhouse in St. Louis on false charges. He enlists friends from his hometown of Southville, IL. to secure his release and returns to find the family farm in foreclosure and the man who raised him dying in a flophouse.

Desperate for money, he accepts a job from the son of a deadly Jewish mobster and eventually crosses paths with a powerful family from Chicago's North Shore. A captain of industry is dead, and the key to his estate disappeared with the Chauffeur. There's good money in it if Elliot finds him, but the mixed-race son of Illinois farm country must return to the Windy City with the cops on his heels, the Syndicate with a knife to his throat, and the wealthy and powerful at his back.

Good thing he is used to playing both sides to the middle.

 What a great change of pace. I can easily see this going into a series with Elliot. Set in a time when the world was still segregated, Elliot had returned from fighting in the war but none of that seems to matter to the country he fought for.

He wakes up in St. Louis jail he makes friends out of one of the guys in the cell with him. Once he places a call to his friend Georgie in Southville, he finds out his uncle has lost the family farm and is residing in a flophouse.  Nothing is as it should be.

He takes the job with the son of his old boss serving papers.  There he takes a side job working for one of the family members he served papers too.  His investigation takes him back to the Windy City.

I like Gardner's character build-up,  you can really tell he spent time getting to know and develop the key characters.  It was a refreshing change of pace and  I made a quick read of it all.

Thanks to NetGalley, Author Guide, and Danny Gardner for my copy for an honest review.