Blood on the Trestle (The Choctaw Parker Mystery/Adventure Series)
In August 1886, the visionary co-founder of Standard Oil, Henry Flagler, has bought up Florida land to build hotels and rail lines that will bring tourists from colder climates. The first of his new hotels, Ponce De Leon in St. Augustine, runs into trouble during construction. Upgraded rail lines get sabotaged, surveyors are shot at, and supplies vanish. Union organizers have teamed up with locals resentful of Northern money men swooping in to permanently change their tranquil ways. Local ferry boat owners fear the new rail lines will drive them out of business. Flagler hires railroad investigator Jimmy Lee “Choctaw” Parker to help. Parker, half-white and half-Native American, has a never-give-up tenacity and special sense for people and problems. He realizes he can’t do it alone and wires old compatriots Chub Moody and Matilda Vance to come help. Moody suffers from diabetes, barely known in those days. Widowed Matilda makes a living running a faro gambling game. She leaves that game and brings her grown son along too.
Brewer’s settings and other details put the reader into that time and place. The well-paced main plotline turns into a layered, sometimes hair-raising story with kidnappings, brutal beatings, and dead bodies. How can Parker and his seemingly misplaced helpers collect solid information to bring vicious people to justice? The non-fiction account of Flagler, his business associates, and engineers erecting the grand real-life Ponce De Leon Hotel out of Florida swamp, which follows alongside the story, adds fascinating context. One of those associates is John D. Rockefeller. The engineer who built the lighting system that allows hundreds of workmen to toil after dark is Thomas Edison. This blend of actual history with a fictional mystery should delight Brewer fans.
