Chicago private eye Nick Acropolis is back with a new adventure. Billy Mansfield has been on Death Row for more than 20 years, and Nick helped put him there in his days as a Chicago homicide detective. Now he's asked to find evidence to free him. Could Billy Mansfield really be innocent? "Westerfield's Chain," the first Nick Acropolis novel, was a Shamus Award finalist. "A great read," --Publishers Weekly "A pure delight for many reasons, not the least of which is the way Jack Clark celebrates and rings a few changes of the familiar private eye script...There's a memorable moment on]...

Chicago private detective Nick Acropolis goes to rural McKinley, Illinois--a town along the old and legendary Route 66--to investigate the case of Jesse Lopez, a truck driver charged with smuggling drugs. Nick meets truck stop waitress Maddy Miller. Her teenage son Billy has been missing for over a year. Nick heads out to Southern California, the end of that same lost highway. This is where Billy Miller was last seen. It's also where Jesse Lopez began his trip. Could the two cases be connected? "Westerfield's Chain," the first Nick Acropolis novel, was a Shamus Award finalist. "A great read,"...

Westerfield's Chain was a finalist for the Shamus Award for Best First Private Eye Novel. "A pure delight for many reasons, not the least of which is the way Jack Clark celebrates and rings a few changes on the familiar private-eye script. There's a memorable moment on] virtually every page."-Chicago Tribune "Clark knows his city: the geography and flavor of the neighborhoods are vividly presented, and interesting, often quirky characters are introduced along this fascinating ride."-Chicago Reader "Jack Clark's descriptions are beautifully haunting and his plotting is exceptional."-Romantic...

"Jack Clark's wondrous celebration of his working-class mother and her natural gifts as a storyteller has touched me deeply. Hooray for Mary Jo Ryan Clark and her boy Jack." --Studs Terkel "The book itself is a marvel of writerly restraint... Some are private moments--being 4 years old, getting shiny new shoes and remembering looking down at them as she toed circles in the sawdust on a butcher shop floor. "Other brush against history--news of Pearl Harbor, or the Dorchester, a World War II troop ship sunk off the coast of Greenland. It was famous for the four chaplains who gave up their life...

These 17 stories which first appeared in the Chicago Reader, cover everything from art to taxicabs. In between you'll find stories about pauper burials, the newspaper business, a high school cheating scandal, accidents and saloons. One element the stories have in common is the city of Chicago.