Ark City Confidential — H.B. Berlow

Baron Witherspoon, a disfigured WWI vet, now a beat cop in a small Kansas burg, is on a collision course with Jake Hickey, a volatile Chicago gangster. While Baron wants merely to provide residents with a safe place to live and escape the memory of the horrors of war, Jake is looking to recapture the glory of Prohibition. Forced to hide out in Arkansas City, Baron's town, Jake's impatient nature drives him to put together his own gang. The local crime outfit is wary of Jake's dealings and lack of cooperation. Baron has his own suspicions but can't prove anything. A mutual acquaintance from the past, a dead war hero, holds a secret that raises the stakes even higher. Baron has too much to lose, but the town's future is in the balance.