The Yazoo Mystery: A Novel

Hiram Strong Jr. boards the steamship Domus as a fireman, desperate to outrun a past he can barely remember. Physically weak and emotionally adrift, he enters a world of brutal heat and endless labor, where the only thing harder than stoking the engines is stoking his will to survive. But the Domus carries more than coal and cargo. Somewhere in the river country beyond New Orleans, something waits something called the Yazoo Mystery, a secret that has already cost lives and will cost more before the voyage ends. As Hiram finds an unlikely mentor in the weathered Ben Taylor, he begins to understand that redemption isnt given, its forged in the spaces between danger and choice. This is a story about what happens when a broken man is put to the test, not on solid ground where he knows the rules, but on a ship where the rules are written in smoke and blood.