" I would say this is more an "almost 3" -- there were 2 distinct stories in this novel and sometimes they didn't connect together very well. Main story, which the author says has been her research interest for many years,is based on the life of outlaw John Ashley, a bootlegger who was drawn into bank robberies and murder to keep the bootlegging operation going. A very colorful character sympathetically described by Buchanan, he lives by the old "Cracker code" of honor. One forgets what a frontier south Florida was in the early 1900s, when Miami was still a small town, and the railroads and draining of the Everglades were just starting. Laura Upthegrove left her husband and children to become his lover & partner in crime, the "Queen of the Glades". The second story is set in modern Miami, with their descendants as a police officer wrongly accused of murder and the beautiful witness he is protecting. This is the weaker story, making up about a third of the book, and I read ahead to finish the story of John and Laura before coming back to the modern in the moment Miami. Buchanan, a longtime police reporter, describes modern Miami very well, even managing humor in dark scenes and I may try some of her other novels. "
— Charlene, 2/7/2014