The Bootleg Caper

Book excerpt: 1929. Wall Street has crashed and the Great Depression dawns. Across America the attempt to keep the nation dry is failing. Illegal booze is king. Organised crime fights for bootleg territory on the streets. The Mob is at war. Into this cauldron steps a naive young Englishman, Jacob Wattworth. He dreams of movie stardom in Hollywood, but within days of stepping ashore in New York he becomes entangled with a rag-tag crew of raffish but lovable bootleggers led by chameleonic superwoman, Eleanor Macnamara. Murder, romance and comedy follow him from New York's mean streets to the frozen wilderness of Quebec's goldfields. Along the way, he engages with malevolent mobsters and colourful characters such as blind Colonel Selwyn Good and the flamboyant movie producer, Argus D. Lasalle. Always in love, but rarely in luck. Jacob is the plaything of events beyond his control. Even though his mentors, his girl, his friends, desert him or die, his optimism always sustains him.