Debts and Vengeance

The third in the Good Neighbors Trilogy, Debts and Vengeance deals with issues of debts owed by the Dacia family and of mob vengeance. It is the early summer of 1933 and the Dacia family on their farm in South Dakota agrees to care for the two Epstein children of New York City for the summer while their parents and grandmother make a perilous trip to Germany. The children of the two families are just getting to know each other when Michael-Joseph Dacia and Daniel Epstein, both eight years old, are kidnapped by the mob in an act of vengeance. The Italian and Greek mobsters from Irina are in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary, and they are furious with those mentioned in August Wagner's song, The Dakota Six. Those six farmers who were responsible for their incarceration and who got the rewards for their capture and the return of their stolen goods. Those six farmers who mock them in August Wagner's song and who cause others to do the same. Among other things, vengeance on August Wagner and the Dacias involves luring August and several members of the Dacia family, including Irina, on a road show tour through South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana and North Dakota. The plot against August involves a series of bare-fisted, illegal boxing matches in dank warehouses by railroad tracks or out behind stock pens at a fair. Horse races, new love, a huge Italian wedding and more mob vengeance all help bring issues to a head as Josif Dacia and his family become a part of the American attitude which is the same in South Dakota as it is in New York City: neighbors helping neighbors, even if they live half way across the country