title: Sticks and Stones
author: Snyder, Karen
description: There are whispers of slain men and of bodies being discovered all around the Saint Louis area of the 1920s. In Grantsville, a gangster turns his eyes on a vibrant eighteen-year-old named Gloriana Fuller. Jack Diamond dresses like the movie star, Rudolph Valentino. His automobile is long and sleek and extravagant. While Gloriana finds his presence electrifying, she suspects he may be the notorious Eddie Richardson who beds very young women and drowns men in the river. Hadn't he served time in jail on bootlegging charges?
  After a hasty marriage they enjoy a steamy relationship. But the fruit of their love possesses a rotten core. Law enforcement agencies are paid off; Eddie reigns with a firm hand, keeping all competitors out. Gloriana is blinded by love until the horrendous truth unveils. Gloriana realizes Eddie's evil side after she catches him with a girl in bed at his lair at the Moonlight Inn. He disgusts her. His gang kills, plunders, rapes, and profits from illegal moonshine. And their evil deeds are raising political interest in Washington. Prohibition laws made Eddie rich and he will not change his ways, not even for Gloriana. But there's a train speeding toward him on the same track, a stranger in Grantsburg seeking to end Eddie's career...and win his wife.
  But can even the rugged, handsome Prohibition Agent T.W. Walker save her and send Eddie Richardson to prison? Washington lawmen soon descend on the area, arresting everyone who aided Eddie; and that includes Gloriana. Is it too late for her, or can she and the lawman get the evidence he needs to send Eddie to prison for life?