Rum Row: A Prequel Novella

It's 1924 and Rhode Island is Dry. And hating it.

Prohibition was never popular in the state that refused to ratify the 18th Amendment banning the sale and use of alcoholic beverages. As the Ocean State, lots of Rhode Islanders found work as rum runners. Especially shuttles out to 'Rum Row,' a flotilla of boats loaded with booze sitting at anchor in international waters, just outside the three-mile boundary limit.

John Edward Haddock is a merchant mariner in the town of Little Penwick who is offered a cool grand to take the Black Duck, the fastest motor vessel in Narragansett Bay, out to Rum Row just before New Year's Eve. The Duck, upgraded with surplus WWI aircraft engines, is even faster than the Coast Guard cutters patrolling the coastline.

John Edward knows it's wrong, and he's loathe to get involved with the criminal element, like Boston's notorious Charles 'King' Solomon … but he could use the money. To start building the house of his dreams, and to propose to the girl of his dreams: Vollie Jeffords.

Rum Row is the novella that tells the story of that dramatic nighttime voyage. And it's a prequel to the Swamp Yankee Mystery series by award-winning author James Y. Bartlett.