Chief Superintendent Kenworthy, now retired, is visiting his married daughter in Florida. The visit is not wholly successful, for to the unsettlement of retirement was added the disorientation of the American scene, anxiety lest his daughter's marriage to a State policeman was in low water, and concern that there might be truth in the allegations of corruption made against his son-in-law.

The scene changes with the murder of the two prostitutes who had preferred the charges. When his son-in-law disappears, Kenworthy moves into action, contacting the Luther Boones I, II and III, a family who had policed a remote stretch of the Everglades for three generations.

As in other John Buxton Hilton novels, the roots of the mystery are embedded in the past. Kenworthy finds himself embedded in the past and listening to tales of the cut-throat land boom of the 1920s when the Everglades were being drained, of the world of gambling and protection, of the massive drug traffic of contemporary South Florida, and of even newer, more ingenious crimes. Two generations of Luther Boones have been outwitted by the man behind the rackets. Could Luther Boone III manage things better? Kenworthy soon has opportunity to go to work in his most dogged and devious fashion.

Neat plotting, vivid writing, excitement, and insight into nasty circles - all are here.