1. John Weather is a returning veteran who must come home to clean up the corruption which has taken over his home town, a corruption presumably which has arisen during his absence. Notice how many post-war crime novels use this premise. Why is that?

2. Compare John Weather to Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer who is also an arm of vengeance and cleansing.

3. What do you make of the idea of a whole town corrupted by one man or one organization? What does this say about the place of crime and the criminal?

4. If the group is familiar with the novel Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett, or if the group would like to also read it, a comparative discussion of the two books might be informative. This is especially true since one was written in the aftermath of the First World War and the other in the aftermath of...