Darkness in Dixie is book 4 in the Clarence Duval Series.

After failing in his second acting career, Clarence leaves St. Louis after receiving word his father might be alive. He journeys to Alabama to track down the truth. Once in Alabama, however, local authorities frame him for a crime and he’s forced into the black hole of Alabama’s prison labor system.

Clarence’s sentence places him in the forests of northern Florida to extract turpentine. Ill-fed and worked unceasingly, his companions die left and right from hunger, disease, and brutal camp conditions. His only hope is a letter he manages to send to his old friend, John Ward, telling Ward what’s happened.

Opposing Clarence and his friends is Jefferson Winston, an unrepentant Confederate seeking to restore the racist society of the Old South to his domain in northern Alabama. He’s the largest landowner in the county. He’s also the local judge and controls the entire town of Athens.

Darkness in Dixie might be the blackest, most brutal historical adventure you’ve ever read. The South’s prison labor system is a story so dark it was never meant to come to light. Most history textbooks pass over it. You won’t believe it ever happened in America. But it did. And Clarence must try to survive it.