Jethro Hammer by Craig Rice (as Michael Venning) “No one will get you out of your vacation hammock too easily, once you've started. … There are deftly drawn characters, colorful backgrounds and pungent, believable dialogue to round out this Grade-A thriller.”—The New York Times “Breathlessly exciting”—The Chicago Sun-Times From the jacket: Once in a while, because of its eminent readability, a book emerges from the many to take its place at the top of any reader’s list. Jethro Hammer is such a book, embracing all the qualifications of top ranking fiction as well as embodying the spine tingling drama and needling action of the best psychological novel. Will Donahue, blacksmith, was a simple-hearted friendly man who loved children, stray cats, and everything lonely and helpless. It was only natural, when the pale, undernourished baby was found wailing in a church, that Will take him to his home, give him a name (Jethro Hammer), and raise him as one of his own children. After Will’s death, his now fully grown family, selfish to the core, declined to cut Jethro in on the fortune the blacksmith had amassed. The disappearance of Jethro Hammer (which lasted twenty years), his return, his revenge and his death unfold with a dramatic simplicity that well makes felt the embittered strength of the cast off man.