Longstreet, Mississippi, is an old, tough river town run by a crooked mayor and council. When a redneck cop mistakes a black youth for a purse snatcher and kills him, the crime is whitewashed. Black activists in Longstreet hire Kidd to "take the town down." Kidd, a semi-amoral, tarot-reading, artist/computer hacker/con man/hard guy, enlists LuEllen, a professional burglar and his sometime lover, and Bobby, a never-seen genius hacker, to help drive the crooks out of office and steal all their money. With this second Kidd novel, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Camp has a winning series on his hands. Kidd is a fascinating, quirky enigma. He and LuEllen lie to everyone, allies and victims alike, con some people, and terrorize others. Camp's writing never intrudes, it simply carries the story. His knowledge of computers, burglary, classic stings, and human nature rings true, and his reporter's sensibilities create vivid, interesting locales.

A frazzled sequel to The Fool's Run (1989), Camp's seriocomic caper novel published in between his outstanding pseudonymous (as John Sandford) thrillers, Rules of Prey (1989) and Shadow Prey (1990). This time out, the action's far more serio than comic as computer hacker / painter / Tarot-buff Kidd cleans up a corrupt southern town. Back to help Kidd pull the plug on the "machine" that runs Longstreet, Mississippi, is sexy cat-thief LuEllen; the tension between these two free spirits as they resist their growing love for one another gives the novel some emotional sizzle. Less warming, for all its byzantine spirals, is the main plot line, which has Kidd called in by modem-pal Bobby to avenge the death of one of Bobby's protégés, a black boy gunned down without cause by two Longstreet cops subsequently protected by the machine. Posing respectively as a rummy painter and a crystal-ball reader, Kidd and LuEllen motor down the Mississippi in a rented houseboat to Longstreet, where they link up with a trio of radical reformers. Together, with modem-input from Bobby, the group hatches an intricate plan to discredit the machine's big wheels — including the town's superstitious mayor and sadistic dogcatcher — through complex blackmail and financial mayhem; separately, Kidd and LuEllen, after monetary as well as moral rewards, pursue their own agenda by robbing the homes of the town leaders to steal their illicit fortunes (some nifty home-intrusion lore here) and by driving the mayor crazy through rigged fortunetellings. All goes well until Kidd & Co. underestimate the machine's ruthlessness, leading to two brutal murders and a jarring, violent climax. Kidd and LuEllen remain compelling characters, but here they've tumbled into an overplotted, herky-jerky-paced tale that boasts neither the charm of the prequel nor the riveting suspense of Camp's other books.

Kidd, the rogue Tarot-reading computer-whiz-for-hire introduced in The Fool's Run is back in another well-written suspense yarn. When good citizens of a small Mississippi town enlist his talents to clean up their corrupt local government, Kidd and a lovely cat-burglar cohort set up a scam operation designed to force the politicians' resignations. Cards and computers are important to the plot again, but more action and violence makes this a much livelier story than The Fool's Run. The imaginative con scheme is clever yet believable, but the biggest thrills occur when events don't go as planned. Top-drawer escapist fare.

Camp's witty, engrossing sequel to The Fool's Run brings back artist/narrator Kidd, who makes the most of his skills as a kind of computer-mercenary. A beautiful black activist wants Kidd to help her oust the "respectable" people who are running the small Mississippi delta city of Longstreet, in the process lining their pockets. Kidd and friend/lover/burglar Luellen pose as arty tourists on a houseboat in a plan to flimflam the greedy gang and dig into their hidden bank accounts and stashes of diamonds, stamps, coins, etc. But the caper turns murderous as they run up against a sadistic chief of the department of "animal control." Playing the good guys off the bad, who are led by ditzy, dangerous Mayor Chenille Dessusdelit, Kidd and Luellen wonder if they'll escape with their skins, and the loot, as events sweep them to a gory climax and bittersweet ending. This is a fast-moving, stylish delight, with dialogue that crackles.