Jon Sealy
Hub City Press
April 1, 2014
Idgie Says:
I'm not sure exactly why, but Sheriff Furman brings to mind Tom Skerritt on Picket Fences - a sensibly minded sheriff of a certain age, just wanted to make things right.
This is a gritty Prohibition age story with hidden loves, hidden liquor, hidden agendas and people just trying to make a living, any way they can. The characters stick with you, you become invested in their lives and perhaps even find yourself rooting for those you wouldn't expect to.
P.S. - I Love the cover!
Book Description:
Late one night at the end of a scorching summer, a phone call rouses Sheriff Furman Chambers out of bed. Two men have been shot dead on Highway 9 in front of the Hillside Inn, a one-time boardinghouse that is now just a front for Larthan Tull’s liquor business. When Sheriff Chambers arrives to investigate, witnesses say a man named Mary Jane Hopewell walked into the tavern, dragged two of Tull’s runners into the street, and laid them out with a shotgun. Sheriff Chambers’s investigation leads him into the Bell village, where Mary Jane’s family lives a quiet, hardscrabble life of working in the cotton mill. While the weary sheriff digs into the mystery and confronts the county’s underground liquor operation, the whiskey baron himself is looking for vengeance. Mary Jane has gotten in the way of his business, and you don’t do that to Larthan Tull and get away with it.
Hailed as a “grand new talent” (Bret Lott) and a “significant new voice in Southern fiction” (Ron Rash), Jon Sealy has written a haunting debut novel. With its unforgettable characters and evocative setting, The Whiskey Baron is a gripping drama about family ties and bad choices, about the folly of power and the limitations of the law.