Sue Anger grew up in Beaufort, N.C., listening to rum-running stories from the Prohibition era. Her latest novel, “Last Known Port,” is a Southern mystery set in Beaufort in 1923.
We recently heard from North Carolina native Sue Anger about her latest novel set in Beaufort. Here’s the synopsis…
Anxious to see his brother after sailing off-shore for weeks, Jake Parson sails into Beaufort, North Carolina, in the spring of 1923. After he docks in the harbor, he learns his brother is missing at sea. Set against Prohibition’s backdrop of boats and booze and rag and jazz, Jake senses foul play and believes the answers to his brother’s disappearance lay in the port town. His search leads him into the rum-running operations of Beaufort’s watermen.
While privately struggling with bouts of shell shock from his service in The Great War, Jake enters the town and is soon smitten with the jazz musician Nell Guthrie, who is engaged to marry into a powerful family. He learns local rum runners are piloting small boats in the open ocean to collect illegal booze from ships traveling the “Whiskey Road” that stretches from Nassau to New York City’s Rum Row. Jake soon scratches the thin veneer of civility in this seemingly safe port, and manages to challenge the separate and unequal Jim Crow customs, small-town provincialism, and Nell’s formidable fiancé. As the search for his brother intensifies, Jake has to work fast to outmaneuver his enemies.
Sue is a freelance writer and pens shorts stories, essays, magazine articles, content and blog posts. She’s a dyed-in-the-wool fan of historical fiction and mysteries and a long-time member of Sisters in Crime and the Triangle Area Freelancers in Raleigh, North Carolina.She said when she’s not writing historical fiction, or fighting for environmental and humanitarian injustices, she loves sailing on a fair southeast breeze, preferably at the helm of a wooden Sharpie. Read more about Sue at https://sueanger.com/.
