First published 2003
Byron Aldridge once lived as the golden heir to a Pennsylvania timber fortune. His younger brother Randolph looked up to him as both mentor and hero. Then World War I changed everything. Byron came back from France a broken man. War memories drove him away from home. He wandered from town to town, took work as a lawman, then vanished completely. His family finally tracks him down in a remote Louisiana mill town. They buy the entire operation and send Randolph to run it. Randolph enters a world he has never imagined. Cypress swamps press in from all sides. Workers endure crushing labor in brutal heat. Sicilian gangs control the whiskey, gambling, and prostitution. Byron dispenses his own harsh brand of justice as the local law. Randolph must navigate this dangerous place while trying to understand what his brother has become and whether any trace of the man he once idolized still remains.
Genres: american-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, mystery, crime, family-drama
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, emotional, suspenseful
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, redemption
Setting: Louisiana, Pennsylvania
Period: World War I
320 pages · Hardcover · Knopf
Content warnings: violence, war