#10 in the Milan Jacovich mystery series … “Boston has Spenser. Detroit has Amos Walker. And Cleveland has Milan Jacovich.” — The Plain Dealer Everyone has secrets. But college freshman Jason Crowell is especially guarded when an anonymous feminist organization on campus publicly accuses him of date rape. Jason proclaims his innocence but has no idea who the “Women Warriors” are—or even who his supposed victim is. Jason’s former high school principal, Reginald Parker, believes in the kid. He asks private investigator Milan Jacovich (it’s pronounced MY-lan YOCK-ovitch) to uncover the identities of the secret accusers. Milan would prefer to steer clear of this unpleasant case, but Reggie Parker once saved his life (see Deep Shaker), so Milan agrees to investigate. What he finds surprises him—and eventually leads to murder. Milan tangles with Jason’s rigid and unfeeling parents, a mean-spirited campus police chief, and an extremely dangerous gang of youths that wants him dead. He quickly finds himself in more trouble than he ever imagined. “[Milan Jacovich] is a hero one can't help but like. Roberts' polished prose, inventive plots, and pleasantly low-key style add extra appeal to his long-running series.” — Booklist [Milan Jacovich] is a hero one can’t help but like. Roberts’ polished prose, inventive plots, and pleasantly low-key style add extra appeal to his long-running series. ― Booklist Published On: 1999-01-01 Les Roberts is the author of 16 mystery novels featuring Cleveland detective Milan Jacovich, as well as 11 other books of fiction. The past president of both the Private Eye Writers of America and the American Crime Writer’s League, he came to mystery writing after a 24-year career in Hollywood. He was the first producer and head writer of the Hollywood Squares and wrote for The Andy Griffith Show, The Jackie Gleason Show, and The Man from U.N.C.L.E., among others. He has been a professional actor, a singer, a jazz musician, a teacher, and a film critic. In 2003 he received the Sherwood Anderson Literary Award. A native of Chicago, he now lives in Northeast Ohio. Chapter One Where do people come up with their agendas, their causes, their passionate advocacies? They don’t tell you what your responsibilities are when you’re born. They don’t give you a job description and a list of your duties. You have to figure it out yourself. I make my living as a private investigator and security specialist, a job that fulfills and enriches me as well as pays the bills. Still, I’m not presumptuous enough to say exactly why I was put here on earth, because I don’t know. And when I meet somebody who does, who tells me they’re absolutely certain they were created to save the whales, spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ, revive the American theater, kill everyone who isn’t a white Protestant, convince gay people to change their wicked ways, rail against the evils of demon rum, or bitch at other poor bastards about their sexual habits, their choice of reading material, or their cigarette smoking, they are either purely full of baloney or possessed of the most astonishing hubris. What’s right for me isn’t necessarily right for somebody else, and I take great umbrage at those who try to force the rest of us to do it their way. I think our main job is to find out who we are and what’s the right thing to do for ourselves individually, and then shut up about it and go do it. Reggie Parker never had an agenda. Dr. Reginald Parker, as in Ph.D., is the principal of St. Clair High School, my alma mater, from which my older son, Milan Junior, had just been graduated. His calling, although he’d never refer to it as such, is to educate kids in ethics and living, as well as academics, and to point them in the right direction so they can live productive and happy lives. He doesn’t yammer or proselytize; he doesn’t even make much of a big deal about it. It’s his job, and he does it well. He’s also a tough ex-Green Beret who’d seen enough action in Vietnam to fuel several Schwarzenegger movies, and a ringing voice of decency and reason in the black community on Cleveland’s east side, a civil-rights activist, and a two-handicap golfer. And he’s my friend. That’s the most important, the friend part. Reginald Parker loomed large in my office chair. It wasn’t that he was any bigger than I am―actually, not quite as big. At six feet or so, around two hundred pounds, he was a middle-aged, pleasant-looking light-skinned black man with freckles across the bridge of his bespectacled nose. He wore a brown tweed suit with a tan knit tie knotted under the collar of a white shirt―so the mere sight of him wasn’t going to send anyone running for cover. His mild-mannered mien camouflages awesome toughness of spirit. Once, several years ago, he saved my life. Not in Southeast Asia, where we’d both put in a couple of bloody tours in-country without our paths ever crossing―but in a boarded-up crack house on the east side of Cleveland, and at great per