Prohibition is in full swing and so is the bootlegging business. Dixie Clay is the best moonshiner in the county but despite the cash rolling in, life is not good for Dixie. Her infant son has died, and she suspects her husband of killing two men (revenue agents sent to enforce prohibition).
Then one day she finds a stranger on her porch offering her an orphaned infant. She takes it.
Undercover revenue agents Ted Ingersoll and Ham Johnson have been sent to Hobnob to find the missing agents and to discover the identity of the local bootlegger. En route to Hobnob, they come upon an abandoned baby, the sole survivor of a deadly robbery gone wrong. Ted, who himself was once a lonely orphan, can’t bring himself to leave the baby at an orphanage. Instead, he asks around for someone who might want a baby and is directed to Dixie.
Unbeknownst to Ted, the woman he gives the baby is the bootlegger he's been searching for and her husband the man he's been sent to catch. Dixie takes the baby without realizing that it's an undercover revenue agent standing on her porch - just a short distance from her hidden moonshine still.
Thus begins a love story between the revenue agent and the bootlegger. Throw in a deranged flapper, a ruthless husband, a troubled uncle, saboteurs, murder, moonshine, and a rising Mississippi that threatens to wash everything away, and you have a fantastic story.
Then one day she finds a stranger on her porch offering her an orphaned infant. She takes it.
Undercover revenue agents Ted Ingersoll and Ham Johnson have been sent to Hobnob to find the missing agents and to discover the identity of the local bootlegger. En route to Hobnob, they come upon an abandoned baby, the sole survivor of a deadly robbery gone wrong. Ted, who himself was once a lonely orphan, can’t bring himself to leave the baby at an orphanage. Instead, he asks around for someone who might want a baby and is directed to Dixie.
Unbeknownst to Ted, the woman he gives the baby is the bootlegger he's been searching for and her husband the man he's been sent to catch. Dixie takes the baby without realizing that it's an undercover revenue agent standing on her porch - just a short distance from her hidden moonshine still.
Thus begins a love story between the revenue agent and the bootlegger. Throw in a deranged flapper, a ruthless husband, a troubled uncle, saboteurs, murder, moonshine, and a rising Mississippi that threatens to wash everything away, and you have a fantastic story.
I have loved Tom Franklin’s books ever since reading "Crooked
Letter, Crooked Letter" and this newest novel, which he wrote with his wife, vies
for a spot on my all-time favorites list.
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