I was intrigued by the plot summary of Michael Mayo’s Jimmy the Stick, a novel published by
The Mysterious Press last year. It tells the story of Jimmy Quinn, a bootlegger
and gunman who used to be a runner for a bunch of mobsters. Then, Prohibition
kicked in, and Jimmy got his leg hurt. After the injury, Jimmy’s leg was never
again the same. Running was no longer an option, and Jimmy walked around with a
walking stick, hence his nickname “Jimmy the Stick”. So he retired from the
running game, opened a speak, and has been doing decently for himself.
But then everything goes to blazes. An old criminal pal of
Jimmy’s, Walter Spencer, gives him a call and asks him to come over to his
rural New Jersey home ASAP. The Lindbergh baby has just been kidnapped, and
Spencer’s hysterical wife is convinced that their child could be next. It’s
nonsense, of course, but Spencer has to go to a very important meeting out of
state. So Jimmy gets hired to protect the kid and to keep order around the
house.
