Last Known Port
Published by Dorrance Publishing, 2022
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.
Protected by North Carolina's Outer Banks, Beaufort appears to have the right balance of working grit and provincial propriety, but Jake sees another side to the town. Between bouts of shell shock, Jake disguises himself and goes ashore to follow Wade’s trail. He soon learns his brother may have been seduced into a rum-running scheme. This is particularly worrisome since his brother, with his odd, idiosyncratic personality, would never decipher the nuances of this illicit business.
As Jake and his faithful Labrador retriever venture into dark bootlegging waters, he becomes smitten with the jazz musician Nell Guthrie, who’s engaged to marry into a powerful family. Both Jake and Nell are haunted by ghosts of The Great War and they share a deep love for music.
During these early days of Prohibition, the federal government set up a three-mile coastal boundary that barred ships from transporting alcohol to the mainland. Jake discovers local watermen piloting small craft offshore to collect illegal booze from ships traveling the “Whiskey Road” that passed by the dangerous North Carolina coast. Ships sailing this maritime route carried liquor from Nassau to New York City’s Rum Row. The local folk rely on their skill and knowledge of the water to outwit the burgeoning Coast Guard patrolling the domestic waters inside the three-mile boundary.
As Nell is drawn to Jake, she has to make some hard choices. Like most rural folks, she wears several hats: she knows her way around her Daddy’s hardware store, she takes care of her invalid mother, and she drives a hard, syncopated ragtime tune at the Inlet Inn. From her sheltered religious upbringing, she’s always viewed the world in black and white terms. When unmoored from her childhood values, she starts to see more enriched shades of grey. Nell has her worldly, eccentric best friend to guide her through this rocky passage. Emma Grace works as a nurse at the local health clinic and knows all the secrets in town. She can also brew a satisfying home-made wine. For years the two friends have kept a record of the comings-and goings to Beaufort by train and by sea. Their observations are invaluable to Jake as he searches for Wade. Eventually, Jake scratches the thin veneer of civility in this safe harbor and challenges the separate and unequal Jim Crow laws, small-town provincialism, and Nell’s formidable fiancé. As the search for his Wade intensifies, Jake has to work fast to outmaneuver his enemies.
While capturing the salt-water beauty of the Outer Banks seascape in her debut novel, Author Sue Anger combines heart, history and a sense of place while unearthing the humor and tension of small-town Southern living. LAST KNOWN PORT is a seafaring journey through the early days of Prohibition when rum-running was still a local game quenching the thirsts of a dry nation. A few short years later, criminal Chicago mobs would come on the scene and nullify local ventures. Traveling through the twists and turns of the mystery of Jake’s missing brother, the reader uncovers a rich menagerie of local folk with a critical eye toward Beaufort’s provincialism and its marginalized people.
Protected by North Carolina's Outer Banks, Beaufort appears to have the right balance of working grit and provincial propriety, but Jake sees another side to the town. Between bouts of shell shock, Jake disguises himself and goes ashore to follow Wade’s trail. He soon learns his brother may have been seduced into a rum-running scheme. This is particularly worrisome since his brother, with his odd, idiosyncratic personality, would never decipher the nuances of this illicit business.
As Jake and his faithful Labrador retriever venture into dark bootlegging waters, he becomes smitten with the jazz musician Nell Guthrie, who’s engaged to marry into a powerful family. Both Jake and Nell are haunted by ghosts of The Great War and they share a deep love for music.
During these early days of Prohibition, the federal government set up a three-mile coastal boundary that barred ships from transporting alcohol to the mainland. Jake discovers local watermen piloting small craft offshore to collect illegal booze from ships traveling the “Whiskey Road” that passed by the dangerous North Carolina coast. Ships sailing this maritime route carried liquor from Nassau to New York City’s Rum Row. The local folk rely on their skill and knowledge of the water to outwit the burgeoning Coast Guard patrolling the domestic waters inside the three-mile boundary.
As Nell is drawn to Jake, she has to make some hard choices. Like most rural folks, she wears several hats: she knows her way around her Daddy’s hardware store, she takes care of her invalid mother, and she drives a hard, syncopated ragtime tune at the Inlet Inn. From her sheltered religious upbringing, she’s always viewed the world in black and white terms. When unmoored from her childhood values, she starts to see more enriched shades of grey. Nell has her worldly, eccentric best friend to guide her through this rocky passage. Emma Grace works as a nurse at the local health clinic and knows all the secrets in town. She can also brew a satisfying home-made wine. For years the two friends have kept a record of the comings-and goings to Beaufort by train and by sea. Their observations are invaluable to Jake as he searches for Wade. Eventually, Jake scratches the thin veneer of civility in this safe harbor and challenges the separate and unequal Jim Crow laws, small-town provincialism, and Nell’s formidable fiancé. As the search for his Wade intensifies, Jake has to work fast to outmaneuver his enemies.
While capturing the salt-water beauty of the Outer Banks seascape in her debut novel, Author Sue Anger combines heart, history and a sense of place while unearthing the humor and tension of small-town Southern living. LAST KNOWN PORT is a seafaring journey through the early days of Prohibition when rum-running was still a local game quenching the thirsts of a dry nation. A few short years later, criminal Chicago mobs would come on the scene and nullify local ventures. Traveling through the twists and turns of the mystery of Jake’s missing brother, the reader uncovers a rich menagerie of local folk with a critical eye toward Beaufort’s provincialism and its marginalized people.
