Tiger Dawn: A Bayside City Book, #6

By James Dargan

TIGER DAWN, A BAYSIDE CITY BOOK, EPISODE SIX

Only the strong will survive in this city in turmoil!

The election for the Bayside City mayor is only days away, and the Italians, Irish and Jews are ready for all-out war. Devereux and his motley crew of vigilantes know if they don't fight dark days await their town. George 'The Silencer' Drago, too, is fighting his own personal war and the restoration of his reputation - he has a man in his sights, and won't stop until he gets him.

Tiger Dawn is the final instalment of the Bayside City hardboiled Noir crime fiction series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Danny Boy Books
• Release date: Nov 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781540103215

James Dargan

James Dargan was born in Birmingham, England, in 1974. Coming from an Irish background, he frequently writes about that experience. As well as England, he has also lived in the United States, Ireland, and - for the best part of fifteen years - in Warsaw, Poland, his home from home from home.

Book preview

RETROSPECTIVE

A light winter snow has hit Bayside City early this year with just a few days until the election for a new mayor. Ralph Dickerson fancies his chances of staying in power for a second term, even if opinion polls for the last month show otherwise. His rival, Democrat Michael Sullivan, is making inroads – especially with the Irish and Italian working-class populations within the City. Dickerson will stop at nothing to do it. For him dirty politics is part of the game.

Anthony Schirru, his wife and children are dead, murdered brutally by the Romanian hitman George Drago after the Italian lost the coin toss. Bertoni has never accepted resignations: it's a lifetime of devotion he's after. He also had his suspicions that Schirru was involved in the hit on him with the Poles – which was another excuse to get rid of him.

Avi Baumshinsky's empire is going from strength to strength. Nobody seems to be able to stop him.

The Polish dragon's head has been cut off completely since the massacre in upstate New York. Now the Polish community lives in fear of further retributions.

Things are looking as bleak for Police Commissioner Patrick Manning too, though at least he's still alive at the moment. He doesn't know how long he can go on before someone finds out about his constant collusion with the criminal elements in town and the money the Mayor gave him to fund the policing of the streets.

The calm before the storm. An all-out war's just around the corner. Mick O'Kelly's alliance with Bertoni's crew to finish off the Jews is still intact, but only just. Against Bertoni's weapons cache and the Irish heavy-handedness, Baumshinsky and his infinite bankroll will know they're in a dog fight to the death. Only the one ready to sacrifice it all may be the one to gain everything.

THE SHOWMAN

Tell the fuck to go away, Mayor Ralph Dickerson says to his assistant James Filmore as a young journalist from a leading newspaper in the nation's capital wants to ask him a few questions about the murders of Alfred Grayson and his writer Jake Tatler.

Okay, sir, the servile Filmore says.

Dickerson walks down the hall with a few of his bodyguards, ready to give another one of his speeches to a full house at The Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hall in downtown Bayside City. Since his campaign began – almost a year before – the Mayor has been doing the rounds of rallies and speeches and visits to hospitals and other things he detests more than the Baysiders he represents.

"...And this is who I am!" the Mayor says after finishing his twenty-minute speech, turning to his right on the podium. A big man in brown overalls, holding a circus master's whip,