Daniel Woodrell

"Alma DeGeer Dunahew, the mother of three young boys, works as the maid for a prominent citizen and his family in West Table, Missouri. Her husband is mostly absent, and, in 1929, her scandalous, beloved younger sister is one of the 42 killed in an explosion at the local dance hall. Who is to blame? Mobsters from St. Louis? The embittered local gypsies? The preacher who railed against the loose morals of the waltzing couples? Or could it have been...

On the Missouri/Kansas border during the Civil War, a Confederate loyalist, an immigrant's son, a freed slave, and a young widow bond as they learn how to survive in an uncertain time and place.