The Fifth Script

Lacy Lockington #1

by Ross H. Spencer

Lacy Lockington is “one thoroughly bewildered six-foot-one, 205-pound, 48-year-old ex-police detective with the damnedest case of snakebite he’d ever heard of.” He cruises the lower depths of Chicago in his weathered Pontiac, seeking some comfort from healthy dollops of Martell’s and from Edna Garson, the part-time cashier at Easheski’s Liquor Emporium.

Lockington is entitled to a mild case of paranoia: he’s still trying to make sense of the knifing-murder of his true girlfriend, Julie Masters, when in the space of about a week, he tangles with four viscious miscreants and shoots them dead¯pretty much in self defense. Stella Starbright, hard-hitting columnist for the Morning Sentinel, takes vigorous exception to Lockington’s action¯in bold print.

Then she walks into his life in person.

“She was five-six or so, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and cuter than a termite’s night shirt...” Like that.

Erika Elwood, nom de plume, Stella Starbright.

Despite taking him to task, she presents the possibility of pleasant distraction for Lockington¯until some of the other ladies who have written the column start turning up dead, and Lockington is quickly considered numero uno suspect...

On the coattails of his heralded Death Wore Gloves, Ross Spencer has produced another combination of sardonic wit and edge-of-the-seat suspense that will leave his readers calling for more.

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ross H. Spencer tries putting more than one sentence together. The story gets longer but not better. He remarks: "the human mind {is} a labyrinth with as many dead ends as thruways", and this sums it well. There IS a "mystery" in here but it is overwhelmed by bars, women, and women in bars.

His earlier books are at least quicker reads.

FYI: the meaning of the title does not come up until 91% of the way through. A better title appears near 96% but nobody should have to read this much mind-lint.