Bear Hug — Jerome Doolittle

In a purer world, Dr. Denton Somerville would have been a responsible fiduciary trustee. But when both he and his Sunbanc Savings and Loan bite the dust, a group of Boston Irish retirees find themselves three hundred thousand dollars the poorer. Enter Tom Bethany, a man who "looks into things." Bethany decides to take on their cause and stem the tide of financial pond scum oozing out of the S&L mess.

Insisting on a fee of expenses only, Bethany heads to Houston to get to the bottom of Sunbanc's shell game. His probing leads him to Somerville's slippery former partner, who'd sell the Alamo into subdivisions; the formidable Assistant U. S. Attorney who smelled something rotten at Sunbanc; an ex-federal judge suckered into Somerville's web and stripped of his life's work; and Somerville's chauffeur, defrauded by his boss and living in an old school bus.

But it's back in remote Isleboro, Maine, home of the petite, blond, and widowed Billene Somerville, that Bethany's curiosity starts earning a violent return on its investment--in the form of a surprise attack by some very protective local thugs. Bethany will need more than inventive wrestling holds to succeed in his toughest match: getting aboard the Somerville boat, getting past the lady's lethal bodyguard, and getting to the bottom of the missing Sunbanc funds....