The American Zone

The Panama Canal was a marvel of engineering that changed maritime and military history. But in 1906, the American Zone was one of the deadliest places in the world to live and work. In this gripping historical novel, acclaimed author Howard Shrier takes you to the heart of the American effort to make the oceans meet. He skillfully blends a cast of real players like President Theodore Roosevelt and chief engineer John Frank Stevens with a compelling fictional cast: Asa Hawkins, a naïve young laborer from Barbados who finds himself accused of murder; Canal Zone Police officer Jack Adams, charged with hunting Asa down; Army nurse Anne Currie, desperate to reduce the mounting number of deaths in the Zone; newspaper reporter Sally Diamond, looking for a just cause to make her own; and anarchist Alvaro Alvarez, who hopes to make his own kind of history when Roosevelt tours the isthmus in November. With his trademark ear for dialogue and eye for detail, Shrier exposes the dangers that lurk in every corner of Panama and the exploitation of West Indian workers who died by the thousands to make America's dream come true.