In the Clear

He always loved the jazzed up feeling when he walked into a casino. This story of the New Jersey seashore is a keeper. Steve Lopez does a good job catching the way local people speak. In a sense Albert LaRosa grew up in the display window of his father's hardware store. Sheriff Albert LaRosa receives an offer to participate in a casino venture. He tells his long time girl friend who dislikes the proposal. It seems that Sheriff LaRosa sought employment in his old hometown following two years on the Philadelphia police force and a tragic event. Now the inland island in the vicinity of Atlantic City has three explosions in three nights and the loss of life in one of the incidents constituting murder. Albert expects to leave office in about two weeks, but first he has to solve the mystery of the explosions and other unexplained occurrences. Things reach such a sorry pitch that Albert is faced with the prospect of arresting his own father.A house is bulldozed to remove it from the path of a road construction project. Albert's friend's diner is slated for removal next. Later he awakes to sounds of gunfire and a fire in his own house. He and a neighbor extinguish the fire.Albert finds himself engulfed in a crime wave. He tries to identify the perpetrator. Even the FBI is involved. Belatedly he ascertains he needs to protect someone as close to him as a son.