The new and exciting historical thriller by Lyndsay Faye,
author of Edgar-nominated Jane Steele and Gods of
Gotham, which follows Alice "Nobody" from
Prohibition-era Harlem to Portland's the Paragon Hotel. The year is 1921, and "Nobody" Alice James is on a
cross-country train, carrying a bullet wound and fleeing for
her life following an illicit drug and liquor deal gone
horribly wrong. Desperate to get as far away as possible
from New York City and those who want her dead, she has her
sights set on Oregon: a distant frontier that seems the end
of the line. She befriends Max, a black Pullman porter who reminds her
achingly of Harlem, who leads Alice to the Paragon Hotel
upon arrival in Portland. Her unlikely sanctuary turns out
to be the only all-black hotel in the city, and its lodgers
seem unduly terrified of a white woman on the premises. But
as she meets the churlish Dr. Pendleton, the stately
Mavereen, and the unforgettable club chanteuse Blossom
Fontaine, she begins to understand the reason for their
dread. The Ku Klux Klan has arrived in Portland in fearful
numbers--burning crosses, inciting violence, electing
officials, and brutalizing blacks. And only Alice, along
with her new "family" of Paragon residents, are willing to
search for a missing mulatto child who has mysteriously
vanished into the Oregon woods. Why was "Nobody" Alice James forced to escape Harlem? Why do
the Paragon's denizens live in fear--and what other sins are
they hiding? Where did the orphaned child who went missing
from the hotel, Davy Lee, come from in the first place? And,
perhaps most important, why does Blossom Fontaine seem to be
at the very center of this tangled web?
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