American Pied Piper

American Pied Piper - Hardcover

$40.43
Sale price  $40.43 Regular price 
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American Pied Piper

American Pied Piper - Hardcover

by Sam Foster
$40.43
Sale price  $40.43 Regular price 

Book Overview

by Sam Foster (Author)

At the dawn of the 20th century, Beardstown, Illinois, is a city of contradiction. A town of river rats, gamblers, and rail-yard workers, it's also filled with the accoutrements and refinements that accompany wealth . . . whatever its provenance. In Beardstown, the God-fearing don't just live side-by-side with the sinners-they often are the sinners.


Throughout the first half of the century, the state's attorney is always a McHugh, a Beardstown family that has spent generations fostering the town's prosperity by keeping the balance between virtue and vice. For the McHughs, knowing when to look the other way is half the job. But when the young, Yale-educated Milt McHugh returns from WWII to take up his father's position, he approaches the role with a very different sense of morality, as well as a desire to clean the town's slate for good-public opinion be damned.
Forty years later, Milt is faced with a town in decline and the prospective fraud trial of a gaggle of corrupt investors known as the "Beardstown Ladies." As he looks back on his life, his work, and the town his courage and moral fiber has created, he wonders: Was the sacrifice of freedom at the altar of decency worth the price the town has paid?
Following the people of Beardstown through a century of upheaval, renewal, and decay-and traveling from Prohibition-era Chicago to London and the Pacific during WWII to the soundstage of the Phil Donohue Show-American Pied Piper is the final chapter in a trilogy tracing the rise and fall of the American Midwest.
Number of Pages: 340
Dimensions: 0.88 x 8.5 x 5.5 IN
Publication Date: October 10, 2023
Large Print: Yes
ISBN9798988406419
Author Sam Foster
PublisherAgave Americana Books
GenreLiterature
FormatHardcover
PublishedOctober 2023
LanguageENG- English
Pages340
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeLarge Print

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