The tilted world - Tom Franklin

From the author of Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter winner of the CWA Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel of the Year

April 1927. After months of rain, the Mississippi River has reached dangerous levels and the little town of Hobnob, situated at a sharp bend in the river and protected only by a faltering levee, is at threat. Residents fear the levee will either explode under the pressure of the water or be blown by saboteurs from New Orleans, who wish to save their own city. Now Ingersoll, a blues-playing prohibition agent, and his gregarious partner Ham, must travel to Hobnob to investigate the strange disappearance of their predecessors; and then get out while they can. But when the men come across an orphaned baby, they can little imagine how events are about to change them - and the great South - forever.

Dixie Clay is a bootlegger, brewing moonshine for her feckless husband Jesse ever since they lost their baby to scarlet fever. Her marriage crumbling, she is guarding a terrible secret about the two missing prohibition agents. Before long, the lives of Ingersoll and Dixie Clay will collide; everything they thought they knew about love and loyalty will turn on its head. And in the dead of night, after thick, illusory fog, the levee will break . . .

A gripping, lyrical novel set against the greatest natural disaster in US history, The Tilted World takes a devastating historical moment and weaves an unforgettable tale of love and survival.