The last good time in the Great Lakes region, the so-called Third Coast gouged into the Upper Midwest of America, was in the shipbuilding era of the two world wars. But even in 1941, in Port Nicollet, Wisconsin, a certain taint grew and spread. It was a port city: sketchy men; fresh-faced boys; salesmen with their sample cases; able-bodied seamen. Always passing through. Occasionally, the locals glimpsed opportunity, but, just as quickly, it was gone. The prospect of something better could not gain purchase on the south shore of Lake Superior. It was as if the people and region, an area in the distant past promoted by developers as the next Chicago, had slipped the moorings and drifted, minus captain and crew, on the waters of Lake Superior. In The Effects of Urban Renewal on Mid-Century America and Other Crime Stories , Jeff Esterholm explores what happens when people slip their moorings and are set adrift.