Scratched (An Algy Temple Mystery)

When Algy Temple pool player sleuth and Ivy League university lawyer investigates the highly suspicious death of a retired university don his contemporaneous involvement in a high stakes pool tournament in Providence becomes a tiresome contentious obligation that must be endured. As he delves into the life of the deceased he unexpectedly finds himself on a path that leads him to Rome the vendetta-ridden Boot of Italy and into a haunted past of corruption and conspiracy with a linkage to the tournament gambling shylocks and mobsters unexpected even in Providence where old world shadows hang heavy in the air.Add an abduction a Ponzi an outraged Italo-American community locked in a culture war with the University a hustlers last gambit for recognition and a fiancé focused on their wedding in two weeks his investigation becomes a match of wits with a dead man and a pool wager of life and death.