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The bodies of two men, complete
opposites in life but both apparently killed in the same act,
are found shot to death beside the Hatch Shell on Boston's
Storrow Drive. One is Commissioner of Police of Boston and
the other is a barroom stentorian. The Commissioner has been
secretly tracking an insidious but apparently growing problem
within the state lottery. Much of the investigation has been
accomplished by a computer expert on his staff.
The barroom soapboxer is the father
of a student in a local college course taught by Prof. Maxine
Humdroph, girlfriend of private eye Harry Krisman. From every
rostrum he has been able to reach the student's father, has
kept up a constant tirade against the lottery as being crooked
from its inception: It's as much politics as anything else
in the state system.
At Maxine's insistence, Harry
and his partner Kell Thorn get involved in the case. The Lottery,
we see from computer revelations, in indeed crooked with immediate
pay-backs being made by many big winners, and the operation
is run by a crafty Arab mole, C Mahad Ar Maheddon. He commissions
protective assassinations when necessary and supplies rake-off
money and guns to terrorist groups, such as Hamas, Islamic
Jihad, Al Gama,and PLOYthis is his role in life.
A series of murders take place
in Greater Boston with Maxine, Harry and Kell continually
on the edge of things and always in danger. A warning note
is pinned on Maxine's apartment door by and Irishman named
Colum Mulchinock, a hired gun employed by Maheddon. Mulchinock
is supposedly obtaining guns for the IRA, but they are actually
going to an Ulster Union Royalist, meaning someone besides
Harry and Kell is on his trail.
Harry and Kell track down, or
draw in, all involved parties, ending in a shootout near the
IRS in Andover when opposing forces go against each other
in the final scene.
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