Beneath A Ruthless Sun: A True Story Of Violence, Race, And Justice Lost And Found
by Gilbert King
Buy on AmazonFrom the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller "Devil in the Grove" comes a gripping story of sex, race, class, corruption, and the arc of justice. In December 1957, Blanche Bosanquet Knowles, the wealthy young wife of a citrus baron, is raped in her home while her husband is away. Journalist Mabel Norris Reese and an inexperienced young lawyer pursue the case, winning unlikely allies and chasing down leads until at long last they begin to unravel the unspeakable truths behind a racial conspiracy that shocked a community into silence. "A small town. A big secret. In December 1957, the wife of a Florida citrus baron is raped in her home while her husband is away.…
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"In December 1957, an arctic freeze descends upon the groves of Okahumpka, Fla., and the town’s human hearts prove just as icy as the stone-cold oranges. A well-off woman has been raped, and the black community finds itself under siege by the bigots of the sheriff’s department. The biggest mystery concerns Jesse Daniels, a developmentally disabled white boy who sleeps with a teddy bear every night, and why he gets railroaded for the crime. A ripping, real-life tale, Beneath a Ruthless Sun will plunge the reader into the legal practices, civil rights battles and stubborn sexual inequalities of the mid-20th century."
NPR Books We Love — 2018 · apps.npr.org