James Harvest THE PAPERBOY: A Novel of 1916s Florida, Crimes & Horrors

In the sweltering heart of the Florida Everglades, where secrets sink into the muck and the truth is buried deep, one boy is about to deliver the story that could destroy his townor get him killed. Palmetto Creek, 1974. The air is thick with the sweet smell of citrus and the whispered secrets of the powerful Jarvis family, who rule their sunbleached kingdom with an iron fist. For sixteenyearold Leo Crane, the only escape from his cramped life is his predawn paper routea silent, solitary world where he feels, for a fleeting moment, in control. But one suffocating summer morning, Leo witnesses something he wasnt meant to see a frantic, hushed argument between the towns golden boy, Chip Jarvis, and his menacing fixer. He hears the panic in Chips voice. He sees the long, sinister scratch on the door of a prized Camaro. Days later, another girl vanishes. The third in two years. The sheriff calls them runaways. The newspaper buries the story. The town, bought and paid for by the Jarvis empire, chooses to look the other way. Everyone is willing to forget. Leo cant. Driven by a gutwrenching suspicion, Leo and his only friend, a swampwise kid called Gator, begin to peel back the sunny veneer of their small town. What they find is a web of corruption so deep it chokes the very life from the Glades. Their search for answers will lead them from the manicured lawns of the elite to the treacherous, gatorinfested heart of the swamp, where the past doesnt stay buriedit waits. Armed with... | James Harvest THE PAPERBOY: A Novel of 1916s Florida, Crimes & Horrors