In the early 1960s, Hallowell, Maine was a sleepy small city on the Kennebec River. Dip Barrett ran a beer store where he socialized with local criminals and took bets for horse racing tracks around the state. His business and the community are turned upside down when the body of a young man is found in the Kennebec River, a poker game leads to a major robbery, a young wife is seduced into a private sex club, a 16 year old boy finds love with a much older woman, a young man’s suicide is a mystery to everyone, and the town drunk becomes a criminal master mind.
The Boys from Joppa is historical pulp fiction at its best. A throwback to the trashy novels of the 1940s to 1960s where women craved love, men were tough, and violence was a business opportunity. The type of memorable situations and vivid characters found in the works of Steinbeck and Doctorow who don’t just exist on the page of a book, but take up residence in your life. The book is insightful, funny, thrilling and sexy without pretense. This masterfully told tale will have you turning each page with an eagerness to read more and more. The book’s power coming directly from its intriguing characters, an imaginative plot and a seamless story.
The Boys from Joppa is the first book in the Kennebec River Trilogy. Book two, Dummers Lane, and book three, The Valley of Good and Evil transport the characters and the plot from their finely crafted roots in The Boys from Joppa to the last thrilling page of the trilogy, this book can only be classified as a must read for fans of pulp fiction, romantic fiction, action fiction, realistic plots and a first-rate adult read.
