Cool Sleeps Balaban
Scott and Usher both need money, and they need it badly. One to save his farm, the other his future. Usher is an experienced criminal and housebreaker, but Scott is a rookie - he's desperate for cash, but petrified of the implications that his actions might have.
To make enough money for their purposes, the pair must commit at least two burglaries - but when things go wrong they discover themselves capable of a degree of violence and level of treachery that lead to a climax of nightmarish proportions.
For twenty-five years MacKenzie lived by crime in many countries. 'I went to jail,' he wrote, 'if not with depressing regularity, too often for my liking.' His last sentences were five years in the United States and three years in England, running consecutively. He began writing and selling stories when in American jail. 'I try to do exactly as I like as often as possible and I don't think I'm either psychopathic, a wayward boy, a problem of our time, a charming rogue. Or ever was.'
He had a wife, Estrela, and a daughter, and they divided their time between England, Portugal, Spain and Austria.