Death in a Dry Season Author:John Wells Atlantic City, the summer resort once known for saltwater taffy and picture postcards, has become a year-round gambling mecca where high rollers stay in flashy hotels by the sea and the down-and-out make do under the Boardwalk. Frank Sweeney, ex-homicide cop from Philadelphia, now a private investigator, arrives in the city looking for his best ... more »friend's brother, Nick D'Angelo. Nick, a compulsive gambler, abandoned his family for the blackjack tables and hasn't been heard from in six months.
Sweeney finds himself investigating two murders by a pyromaniac for-hire, and comes face-to-face with a vicious Boardwalk casino executive who'll do anything to stave off imminent bankruptcy. Ultimately, Sweeney is drawn into the nearby Pine Barrens, where a native Piney, an uneducated artist, helps him untangle the web of lies that originated twenty years ago with an unsolved double murder.« less