Self-Publishing Book Spotlight: The Bootlegger’s Secret

The eleven year old heroes of veteran writer Michael Springer’s new novel suddenly find themselves grappling with the ghosts of Prohibition as their summer vacation goes from a familiar swimming hole to a nightmare landscape of U.S. Treasury agents and Chicago gangsters.

Free-lance writer Michael Springer recently announced the release of his novel The Bootlegger’s Secret, published by Outskirts Press.  The book’s two young heroes follow in the tradition of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer as they learn the hard lessons that sometimes come from boys being thrown too quickly into an adult world.

A story for all ages, The Bootlegger’s Secret starts at the tree house Mark Penn and Swede Larson have built by the river that summer in 1941 when the Middleton, Minnesota, schools are out, the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus is about to come to town, and the baseball season is on for the Middletown Aces.

Swimming in the river one afternoon, they spot the hood ornament of a 1931 Pierce-Arrow and Swede dives down to retrieve an inlaid gold cigarette case from the submerged car.  Inside the case the boys are delighted to find a music box, Turkish filter tips and the photograph of a beautiful woman. 

Soon police also recover from the car the corpse of one Eddie Knowland, a local bootlegging kingpin and member of Al Capone’s Chicago gang.

The cigarette case also contains a secret compartment with Eddie’s “business” records, and when the case disappears, the two boys are pulled back and forth between Treasury agents needing that evidence to prosecute corrupt officials and Chicago gangsters who want the records for blackmail.

Caught in this deadly squeeze, the boys are forced to come up with a plan that will extricate them from this dangerous dilemma and still preserve their own integrity — as well as their lives.

About the Author:

Michael Springer is a Minnesota native, a graduate of Minnesota State University, a former Navy line officer and a free-lance writer.  He now lives with his wife in Gulf Shores, Alabama.

 For more information, visit www.outskirtspress.com/michaelspringer.

This author purchased the Book Blast package, saving 25% on 5 powerful marketing services to blast the book into the stratosphere! The Book Blast package includes the following options: Custom Press Release, PR Publicist Campaign, Book Review Submission Service, Book Video (shown above) and Personal Marketing Assistant. Outskirts Press authors can easily and conveniently add this package at any time from the Marketing Options screen of the author’s center.

Is it time to get published and receive
marketing support and services like this?

Start Publishing


Share this Post

Leave a Reply