The story begins in Missouri
in the 1850s with a duel where Rory Campbell, a gambler and steamboat captain, plays
second for his employer, Quintus Moreaux, a riverboat gambler and an ruthless, abusive
man. Rory has a plan to get free of Moreaux and it involves his childhood
friend, Philadelphia (Dell) Samuels, the daughter of Moreaux’s dead wife and
her black lover.
Like her mother, Dell has an
uncanny ability to read people. Rory wants her to help him win at gambling,
earning enough to gain his freedom. To get Dell to go with him, Rory
intentionally runs his steamboat aground near where Dell lives with her uncle.
Given few options (marrying an old lecher or poverty), Dell accepts his
invitation to go to St. Louis where her evil stepfather awaits.
For the first half of the
book I did not like Rory and I thought Dell might be a fool, given her dreams
of respectability. There was a lot of lusting going on between them and she did
end up in his bed. The issue of Dell’s being a mulatto was never dealt with and
she pretty much passed for white so I could not tell how important it was to
the characters, except for her uncle who would not have a word of it uttered.
It’s a well-written riverboat
adventure with great descriptions of card games as Dell uses her talents to
probe for the truth of men’s weaknesses. The ending is exciting, too. But
underlying it all is a secret involving child sexual abuse that Dell must
ferret out. Jones handles it well but the reader should know it’s there.
Buy it on Amazon.
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