Preview of Potshot Summary:

As in much hard-boiled literature, Parker addresses the effects of man's imperfect nature on society as a whole. The town of Potshot, Arizona, is limited in its growth potential by its water supply, most of which comes from one large aquifer. Spenser's client Lou Buckman finds another source, but rather than make her finding public so that the community can profit together, she enters into a conspiracy with a few other individuals—already empowered by their positions in local government or commerce— to fleece the residents of Potshot to maximize her own profit. In the course of these arrangements, she kills or has killed both her husband and a man with whom she had an affair. Then, when her plan fails to work as she had hoped—or, rather, works better than she had hoped because the Dell gang has driven property values through the...