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Rasmussen Carter is grooming Lily Miller, a young jazz singer, to be a star. She's singing at the Greenwood-the new incarnation of the Esposito-now owned and managed by Baron Loftus, the nephew of Sweetie Bogan, an aging jazz diva. The night Lily debuts, Carter is stabbed in a fight by Sweetie Bogan's lover, Alfonso Deal-Jones. Lily then abandons Rasmussen Carter for Edward Dare, who promises to make her a real star.Carter is killed in the hospital, and Marina asks Elder Darrow, now retired from the bar business, to investigate-since his pal and Marina's soon-to-be husband, Boston Police detective Dan Burton, is still jealous of Carter and Marina's brief fling. Deal-Jones is found beaten to death, and Burton discovers Alfonso was setting up a cocaine deal with Edward Dare, the lieutenant to a major New Orleans gangster, who also happens to be "death" on drug dealing.On their own time, Elder and Burton must solve the murders of the low-rent impressario and the New Orleans gangster's right-hand man. Burton is sure there's a connection. And in the process, Elder discovers he may not be cut out for a life of leisure just yet . . .

The Olympic Games are coming to Boston! Or are they? When a burial detail to the paupers' grave on Boston's Rinker Island comes up with one extra coffin, Dan Burton is called in to take the case. The murdered man is one Constantine Boustaloudis, a neighborhood activist against the effort of rich and powerful interests to bring the Olympic Games to Boston.At the same time, Donald Maldonado, cousin of the infamous Icky Ricky Maldonado, tries to create a place for himself in the Boston underworld, taking over his cousin's criminal activities. He jostles with Mickey Barksdale, Burton's childhood friend, for a piece of the illegitimate prospects of the Games coming to town: construction contracts, union connections, and so on. Complicating matters is that Elder Darrow's thieving girlfriend Kathleen Crawford has stolen something of Maldonado's and he wants it back. Badly enough to kill anyone in the way.Real estate speculators offer to buy the Esposito and turn the block into a velodrome for the proposed Games. Elder is tempted, unsure that he wants to continue in the bar business. The confusion turns the world around Mercy Street into an uproar.