Tom Bethany Series / Bear Hug / Jerome Doolittle

Boston’s Tom Bethany deals with Texas bimbos and Maine hoodlums while trying to track down the whereabouts of funds invested by, or acquired from, the late Dr Denton Somerville for a group of – now hard-pressed – pensioners. On the way to Houston, the doctor’s former residence, Bethany stops off in Washington for a brief tryst with her married friend Hope and then heads west to interview Somerville’s associates and learn about his widow Billene, who is mourning up and down the Atlantic coast on the family yacht, accompanied only by Glen, a muscular bodyguard. In her wake, Bethany meets the Thornburgh cousins, and after some violent brawling, the boys and Bethany board Billene’s yacht, where they wreak more havoc and – no surprise – the “dead” doctor reappears. Two people die and Billene is almost raped before Bethany gives the old boys their money back and arranges a government settlement for the doctor.