On the Grift: a novella

The year is 1949. The place is Chicago in the dead of winter. The trauma of the war and its aftermath has yet to dissipate. The housing shortage is severe and the boom time of the 1950's still lies ahead.Into town rolls a grifter, a lost soul on the make. As plots are hatched and lives are broken, this runaway train of a story speeds out of control on a one-way track to hell.