Vile Spirits

More about the book

Set in 1920s Vancouver, this exhilarating page-turner unfolds in a post-prohibition era where liquor fuels big business, government, and crime. In this captivating follow-up to The White Angel, John MacLachlan Gray vividly portrays the gritty, gin-soaked atmosphere of a city transforming between wars. With alcohol now legal, pro-temperance sentiments linger, prompting politicians like Attorney General Gordon Cunning to establish the Liquor Control Board, which regulates supply from the elite to the dreary “beer parlours.” However, when Cunning is discovered dead with an empty martini glass beside him, followed by the sudden death of Mrs. Harlan Crombie after a book club meeting, suspicions arise. Is it mere coincidence that both victims consumed the same brand of “tonic”? Or could it be linked to the tainted booze crisis from American prohibition? Fans will be thrilled by the return of constable Calvin Hook, reporter Ed McCurdy, and telephone operator Mildred Wickstram, who unite their talents to uncover the truth. The narrative weaves a tense clash among temperance activists, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Liquor Control Board against the backdrop of global events in a rough city on the edge of empire.