Publisher's Synopsis
This is a satirical murder mystery set in a large Chicago law firm. One of the top partners is murdered in the middle of the night. A lawyer murdered? Who cares! Well, his partners are worried about their reputation and our hero, Bumper Lohman, the managing partner, is told by the other partners to find out who did it and put the bad PR to rest. Bumper is a blandini to the extent that anyone ever took notice of him to begin with, but the rest of the characters are berserk. Fun is made of snobs, lawyers, their clients, politicians, the law, the young, the old, the gay and everyone and everything else. The firm is Fenton, Pettigrew and Cohenstein. This was formed by a merger of lucrative convenience between and old line waspy social register firm and a rapidly expanding firm headed by an exempt character named Zenon Cohenstein. Exempt from social registration. He and Graybourne St. Charles run the firm. Ellis Kirkland, one of the top partners, is the one found dead one morning in the north suburban office of the firm. Apparently he was hit over the head by a bust of CaCaPoo, chief of the Kickapoos, and then stabbed with a ceremonial dagger kept in the office. The name of Fenton, Pettigrew must not be besmirched. The culprit must be identified and be brought to justice. This office is locked at night and no one can get in without using their assigned code or having the door opened for them from the inside. Kirkland, a young lawyer named Sean Featherbottom, and the cleaning crew were there the night before. Then everyone except Kirkland left. Kirkland was there alone using the phone. Sean's code was used to get in and Kirkland was konked. The firm's computer records all phone calls and uses of codes on the door. Sean says he had gone home. Another young lawyer named Tamobola Cook, who is stalking Sean, says she saw him go into a gay bar in Chicago about the time of the murder with a gay file clerk who works at the firm. Both deny it. She happens to have got Sean's code out of him by ruse some time earlier and had threatened to fix Kirkland. Lohman looks into clues, leads and suspicious characters until the time of the firm's annual party. This is a huge event taking up all of a large hotel's public rooms. All the firm people, clients, potential clients, their contacts, politicians and assorted prominent parties are there. The police bust in to arrest Sean and Lohman takes over to calm things down. He assembles everyone of interest and reviews all the facts and all the likely culprits. There are quite a few since no one liked the victim. Lohman nails the guilty party and the cops take the party away. Along the way we tour through Chicago and see how its upper crust works - or doesn't.
