Moonshine by Moonlight

By the light of the moon, hidden in the rolling hills of 1923 Carroll County, Iowa, illegal whiskey flows from homemade stills. Defying Prohibition, farmers-turned-entrepreneurs turn their hog houses, barns, and basements into moonshine operations to feed their families and save their land while dodging the ever-present federal regulators led by Alvin Truly, the newly deputized agent for the northern district. To stay ahead of the law, the distillers band together into a syndicate, led by a kingpin unknown to all but one man. The anonymous bootleg king builds an empire of whiskey with thousands of gallons of moonshine flowing across Iowa’s borders while conjuring bigger and better ways to get their product across state lines—some going to the famous Chicago mobster—before federal agents can discover their schemes. Agent Truly, however, has his own plots to trap the bootleggers and bring them to justice. Federals against farmers, Wets against Drys, Protestants against Catholics, Moonshine by Moonlight weaves together a fictional story of the bootlegging era while representing the authentic legacy of Carroll County’s underground whiskey industry during one of the most raucous periods of American history.

Ann Hanigan Kotz’s third novel exposes the power struggle between the law and the lawless and once again brings readers to Iowa’s past.