Defending Billy Ryan - Jerry Kennedy Author:George V. Higgins Jerry Kennedy, with his criminal-law business way down and his boozing way up, can't say no when asked (for $100,000 upfront) to take the case of William F. Ryan, the state's Commissioner of the Dept. of Public Works -- who's being prosecuted for bribery. A lost cause? So it seems. — Old Billy, a veteran ``highwayman, brigand and gene... more »ral grasper,'' certainly did arrange for a four-lane state road to be built through a tiny, swampy backwater town -- after making sure that all the surrounding land had been bought up by assorted pals and cronies. And a former state legislator is ready to testify that Billy let him in on the deal early on.
But Kennedy plunges in and does his level best -- looking for holes in the prosecutor's case, hunting for people who'll sing of Billy's occasional good deeds, and fighting off Billy's meddling offspring (one judge, one general, one unstable politician).« less