Prohibition in the 1920s is often recalled as a big-city phenomenon—speakeasies, bootlegging mobsters, the flaunting of the constitutional edict by the urban wealthy, and the tragic plight of the cities’ poor. But the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act also had a devastating—and highly dramatic—effect on everyday folks in small towns throughout the country. The Last Run is a story about that impact. On July 10, 1929, a headline in the Portsmouth (New Hampshire) Herald announced: Find 139 cases of Liquor Planted in Rye Harbor; Cargo Worth Between $12,000 and $15,000 Seized by Coast Guard—Thought to Have Come from Nova Scotia. The mystery behind the origin of the liquor and the identities of the perpetrators of the crime was never solved. In The Last Run, the author imagines the story behind the story.
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