DETROIT SHUFFLE

A return to the morass of corruption and political turmoil that was 1912 Detroit suggests that it wasn’t all that different from today.

Will Anderson is still suffering from the radium treatments forced on him when he went undercover at the Eloise Mental Hospital (Detroit Breakdown, 2012) to help the family of his lover, Elizabeth Hume. Elizabeth, who’s deeply involved in the women’s suffrage movement, is battling to get the 19th Amendment passed in Michigan, where it’s fiercely opposed by the Michigan Liquor Association. The MLA is run by the duplicitous Andrew Murphy, whose vicious gang of toughs will do anything, including commit murder, to prevent the amendment’s passage. When Will prevents a mysterious figure from shooting Elizabeth at a rally, she and Detective Riordan both think he’s hallucinating. Their reaction only makes Will more determined to protect his love. Tipped off to one of Murphy’s schemes by a prostitute who works as a secretary for Murphy, Will steals a truck from his father’s electric car factory and enlists the help of Elizabeth’s mentally unstable brother and his equally dicey friend to sneak into Eloise and steal a recording machine, which they hide in the MLA offices by posing as exterminators. Stung by Elizabeth’s pity for his mental state and still uncertain whether he can trust the head of Elizabeth’s security team or even Riordan, Will resorts to a drinking spree and loses several days of his life. Despite all the obstacles ranged against him, he refuses to give up his quest to protect Elizabeth.

Will’s fourth is his best outing yet, packed with action by turns funny and chilling and deftly blended with the historical background.