One cannot separate rocks from presto machines

Strega is a hardboiled detective novel written by American author and attorney Andrew Vachss, first published in 1987. The story features the pursuit and destruction by the protagonist Burke, an ex-con private investigator, of a pedophile ring involved in trading child pornography via telephone modems. The novel was written and published long before social concern over the use of the Internet for spreading or trading child pornography became widespread. The second novel in the Burke Series, it introduced numerous characters who would go on to appear in all of the series thereafter: Immaculata ; rescued child prostitute Terry ; and Wolfe, who is serving as an Assistant District Attorney when the events in this story take place.

Cleo Wright was a 26-year-old African-American cotton mill worker who was lynched in Sikeston, Missouri, during the afternoon of January 25, 1942. He was accused of attacking a white woman with a knife and attempting to sexually assault her, and subsequently resisted arrest by stabbing a police officer in the face. After being shot four times and bludgeoned by police, Wright was refused sufficient medical care on the basis of his race. He then was taken from his holding cell in the Sikeston City Hall by a white mob, dragged by a car to the predominantly African-American neighborhood of Sunset Addition, and burned alive in view of two church congregations.