From debut novelist Maris Lawyer, The Blue Line Down is a breakneck
tale of betrayal, loyalty, and unexpected homecoming. Jude Washer
wants to run: away from the coal mines where he is destined to work,
away from his father's abuse of his little brother, away from the
prison-like confines of his village. Whispers of unionizing ripple
through the small West Virginia mining town. When the mines take Jude's
brother away from him, Jude takes matters into his own hands. With
nowhere else to go, Jude joins the Baldwin-Felts Agency, a band of
violent men dedicated to stamping out unionizers across the mountains.
It is 1922, and the Baldwin-Felts are poised to raid a mining town in
Virginia. When the coal miners fight back against the agents, Jude, now
twenty-four, and Harvey, a new recruit, take an opportunity to flee amid
the bloodshed. With the Baldwin-Felts on their tail, Jude and an injured
Harvey make their way down the mountains, where they are intercepted in
South Carolina by a ragtag gang of bootleggers who put them to work to
pay off a debt. Jude is desperate for a place to call home, but can he
find it in these hardscrabble hills among strangers?
