Beneath a Ruthless Sun: A True Story of Violence, Race, and Justice Lost and Found

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR and THE WASHINGTON POST

"Compelling, insightful and important, Beneath a Ruthless Sun exposes the corruption of racial bigotry and animus that shadows a community, a state and a nation. A fascinating examination of an injustice story all too familiar and still largely ignored, an engaging and essential read." --Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy

From the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller Devil in the Grove, the gripping true story of a small town with a big secret.

In December 1957, the wife of a Florida citrus baron is raped in her home while her husband is away. She claims a "husky Negro" did it, and the sheriff, the infamous racist Willis McCall, does not hesitate to round up a herd of suspects. But within days, McCall turns his sights on Jesse Daniels, a gentle, mentally impaired white nineteen-year-old. Soon Jesse is railroaded up to the state hospital for the insane, and locked away without trial.
But crusading journalist Mabel Norris Reese cannot stop fretting over the case and its baffling outcome. Who was protecting whom, or what? She pursues the story for years, chasing down leads, hitting dead ends, winning unlikely allies. Bit by bit, the unspeakable truths behind a conspiracy that shocked a community into silence begin to surface.

Beneath a Ruthless Sun tells a powerful, page-turning story rooted in the fears that rippled through the South as integration began to take hold, sparking a surge of virulent racism that savaged the vulnerable, debased the powerful, and roils our own times still.

Gilbert King is the author of Beneath a Ruthless Sun, published by Riverhead Books in 2018. He is also the author of the New York Times bestseller, Devil in the Grove, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction in 2013. The book was also the runner-up in nonfiction for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, a finalist for both the Chautauqua Prize and the Edgar Award, and the gold medal winner in nonfiction for the Florida Book Awards. King has written about the race and criminal justice for the New York Times and the Washington Post, The Atlantic, and Smithsonian. He's also a featured contributor to The Marshall Project. King's previous book, The Execution of Willie Francis was published in 2008. He lives in Brooklyn, NY. For more information, please go to GilbertKing.com