Underground Airlines

Winters, Ben H

ISBN 10: 1478916745 ISBN 13: 9781478916741

Publisher: Mulholland Books, 2016

Synopsis

A gifted young black man calling himself Victor has struck a bargain with federal law enforcement, working as a bounty hunter for the US Marshall Service. He's got plenty of work. In this version of America, slavery continues in four states called ''the Hard Four.'' On the trail of a runaway known as Jackdaw, Victor arrives in Indianapolis knowing that something isn't right -- with the case file, with his work, and with the country itself.

A mystery to himself, Victor suppresses his memories of his childhood on a plantation, and works to infiltrate the local cell of a abolitionist movement called the Underground Airlines. Tracking Jackdaw through the back rooms of churches, empty parking garages, hotels, and medical offices, Victor believes he's hot on the trail. But his strange, increasingly uncanny pursuit is complicated by a boss who won't reveal the extraordinary stakes of Jackdaw's case, as well as by a heartbreaking young woman and her child who may be Victor's salvation. Victor himself may be the biggest obstacle of all -- though his true self remains buried, it threatens to surface.

Victor believes himself to be a good man doing bad work, unwilling to give up the freedom he has worked so hard to earn. But in pursuing Jackdaw, Victor discovers secrets at the core of the country's arrangement with the Hard Four, secrets the government will preserve at any cost.

Underground Airlines is a ground-breaking novel, a wickedly imaginative thriller, and a story of an America that is more like our own than we'd like to believe.

About this title

Review

An Amazon Best Book of July 2016: A powerful look what might have been, Ben Winters creates an alternate reality based on the absence one of our most important historical events: The Civil War. Slavery has infected the United States, permeating the everyday lives of most Americans without much thought until a group of citizens come forward to try and make a difference. This trailblazing and well thought out novel plays the role of mystery-thriller while poignantly illuminating the many ways life today is more like Winters' alternative world than we may want to admit. --Penny Mann, The Amazon Book Review

About the Author

Ben H. Winters is the author of World of Trouble, the concluding book in the Last Policeman trilogy. The second book, Countdown City, was an NPR Best Book of 2013 and the winner of the Philip K. Dick Award for Distinguished Science Fiction. The Last Policeman was the recipient of the 2012 Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America.

About this edition

• Publisher: Mulholland Books
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1478916745
• ISBN 13: 9781478916741
• Binding: Audio CD