The Whiskey Baron by Jon Sealy

I found The Whiskey Baron on the Friends of the Library bookshelf at our local library (all books are 10c). Jon Sealy is a gifted writer (The Whiskey Baron was his debut novel) and his descriptions are detailed with beautiful prose, something sadly lacking in many of the modern day novels. I found the story intriguing with a sadness for the people living through such hard times in 1930s South Carolina. This is going on my favorite list for this year.


From the cover:
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 Lartham Tull's liquor business. . .  Sheriff Chambers' 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.