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In the summer of 1946, the most wide-open town in America is Hot Springs, Arkansas, a city of legendary corruption. While the pilgrims take the cure in the mineral-rich water, the brothels and casinos are the true source of the town's prosperity. This is run by an English-born gangster named Owney Maddox, who represents the New York syndicate.
But all this is challenged when a newly elected county prosecutor hires ex-Marine sergeant Earl Swagger to wage a war on the gambling. Swagger knows how to fight with guns as well as any man in the world. But he is haunted by the savage memories of the fighting he just barely survived in Iwo Jima. It isn't that he is afraid of dying; it may be that he yearns for it.
The gangsters set up a campaign of ambush and counterambush in the brothels and casinos. Raids erupt into full-out combat as the body count rises.
Will Owney Maddox defeat the raiders but lose a secret battle with a young man from the West who foresees a Hot Springs in the Nevada desert? Will Earl Swagger survive another hard war, not merely with his body but also with his soul intact?
