Legends Of The Strait — Bruce Robinson

The setting:
Prohibition Era Benicia, California, a major terminal on the Transcontinental Railroad where giant ferries carry 35 passenger trains a day across the Carquinez Strait, connecting Sacramento to Oakland and all points south; a five-mile strip of waterfront property populated by Chinese and Greek fishermen, Italian fruit farmers, Portuguese cannery and tannery workers, itinerant gypsies, and a small minority of Anglo-Americans who own the most valuable property and run the local government with graft and intimidation; a town of opposites where fires and floods are seasonal events, where Dominican nuns educate at one end of First Street and brothels at the other.
The characters and plot:
A one-armed African-American auto mechanic who adopts a run-away white boy and raises him to be the leader of a bootleg distribution ring; a deeply troubled woman who drives her doting millionaire husband to suicide and tries to murder her own children; a powerful and corrupt county supervisor who conspires to sabotage the first west coast Democratic National Convention; a ruthless bootlegger who hires Baby Face Nelson to murder law-enforcement officers and rival gang members; a talented young woman attorney who must defend the man accused of murdering her own father.
The historical background:
It was during Prohibition that George Santayana wrote: Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. These words resonate in our own time as Americas political leaders continue to push their agendas for change.