Little Louis Monroe is an anomaly in Atlantic City: a truly honest cop in a town eroded by corruption, from the gutters to the executive offices in its showy casinos. He's a combination of Candide and Don Quixote: He continues to believe that right can prevail if only he tries hard enough.Although still painfully convalescing from a near-fatal encounter with his enemies (Down by the Sea), Monroe is determined to stop a proposed redevelopment project that will benefit no one but the dishonest politicians and operators doing their best to push it through. His wife, presumably the realist of the pair, thinks he's out of his mind, and takes a job in the casino that is at the center of the evil he is fighting. The only bright side of that is that it gives him the opportunity to enjoy the care of her infant, to whom Louis is more of a parent than the child's mother.Is Louis Monroe unreal? His idealism and integrity may be rare, but Bill Kent has created a reality that is at least as compelling as today's news, and as colorful and glitzy as the city he writes about. Whatever befalls Louis Monroe - and plenty does - he is an unlikely but convincing symbol of hope for us all. He's playing with danger, and he knows it, but armed with high purpose and native smarts, he's stubbornly determined to take his chances.Kent's newspaperman's knowledge of the seaside city that changed from a genteel resort to a gambling center infuses his books with absolute reality; reading them is like seeing cinema verite with a lovable, admirable hero tilting at the windmills of corruption and greed. Read Less