Review by New York Times Review
In Winters's novel, Lincoln was assassinated early on, in "the martyrdom that saved the union" and prevented the Civil War. Instead, the secessionists rejoined the United States with the proviso that what were termed the "Hard Four" - Mississippi, Alabama, the newly combined Carolinas and Louisiana - could legally preserve the institution of slavery. And so, a century onward, millions now toil at forced labor in behemoth corporate-owned mines and factories in those states. Fleeing this nightmare is just barely possible, thanks to a modern-day human-smuggling enterprise called the Underground Airlines, a piecemeal, ragtag group of saviors, "each running its own route." But Victor, the protagonist of Winters's dystopian novel, renders any flight horrifically dangerous. Himself an escaped slave, he is bound (via a computer chip embedded in his spine) to serve as a bounty hunter for the federal Marshals Service, charged with enforcing the still very extant Fugitive Slave Law, now called the Fugitive Persons Law. So far he has returned more than 200 people to their owners. Skin color, in this disturbingly twisted world, breaks down very specifically in the marshals' service guide, so that one man's pigmentation might be listed, for example, as "late-summer honey, warm tone, #76." The story pivots on Victor's ability to locate a specific fugitive named Jackdaw, in flight from the Garments of the Greater South factory. In order to accomplish his unsavory work, Victor must become a shape-shifter. In his Indianapolis hotel room, he stocks picks for cracking locks, a computer with a super-deluxe mapping program, wigs, various clear-glass spectacles, rolls of cash and a gun. Privately, he's a man of moderate tastes: He adores Michael Jackson's music, cheap Pakistani cigarettes and his Nissan Altima. An immersive thriller as well as a provocative alternative history, "Underground Airlines" showcases a fully realized central character who believes his own disturbing past can be kept safely buried. But history has a way of bubbling to the surface of the present. Winters succeeds in rendering the slave catcher monstrous but capable of redemption as Victor's sympathies shift to the underground side. JEAN ZIMMERMAN'S most recent novel is "Savage Girl"
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 11, 2016]
Review by Booklist Review
Winters' splendid The Last Policeman trilogy was set in a version of the contemporary world that was soon to be destroyed; his new novel is also set in the contemporary world but in an alternate version one in which the Civil War never happened. Slavery, even today, is still the law in four American states. When Victor, a young African American who works for the U.S. Marshals Service, is tasked with locating a runaway slave, he doesn't plan on going up against a notorious abolitionist movement, or on discovering the hidden truths of his own country. This is a daring and very well constructed novel; readers who enjoyed the Last Policeman novels will find the same intelligent characterization and attention to time and place here. Pair this with Brendan Dubois' Resurrection Day (1999), which takes place in an equally intriguing alternate world, one in which the Cuban Missile Crisis has erupted into nuclear war.--Pitt, David Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man meets Blade Runner in this outstanding alternate history thriller from Edgar-winner Winters (The Last Policeman). Victor, an African-American bounty hunter for the U.S. Marshals Service, possesses a supreme talent for tracking down runaway slaves in a world in which there was no Civil War and slavery still exists in four Southern states. He's a master of disguise and dissembling. Victor tracks a runaway slave code-named Jackdaw to Indianapolis, Ind., where he ingratiates himself with Father Barton, a purported leader of an abolitionist organization called Underground Airlines, and succeeds in penetrating the group. But soon thereafter Victor impulsively befriends Martha Flowers, a down-on-her-luck white woman traveling with her young biracial son, Lionel, a kindness that soon jeopardizes Victor's carefully constructed cover identity. The novel's closing section contains several breathtaking reversals, a genuinely disturbing revelation, and an exhilarating final course of action for Victor. Agent: Joelle Delbourgo, Joelle Delbourgo Associates. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
In this alternative history, President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated en route to his inauguration. His death leads legislators to come together with one last proposal to keep the Union intact. It works, and today the status of slavery is decided state by state. In the Hard Four states, "peebs" (Persons Bound to Labor) are legally enchained, working 12 hours on and eight off. If a peeb escapes, the federal government is enjoined to find and return him to his owners. Victor works undercover for the U.S. Marshals, tracking down other black men. Now he's hunting a peeb named Jackdaw. Something's wrong, though, and he can't figure out what. Fast paced and filled with menace, the story has an ambience that makes it special. In Victor's supposedly "free" world, everywhere there are traps for people of color-free doesn't mean equal and definitely doesn't mean safe. What's startling is that Victor's experiences could well happen in the contemporary world. VERDICT Explosive, well plotted, and impossible to put down, this alt-hist by the Edgar Award-winning author of the "Last Policeman" trilogy will attract readers of all genres. [See Prepub Alert, 1/25/16.] © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Imagine: there was no Civil War, and the Confederacy has morphed into a low-tech Matrix. That's the territory that Winters (The Last Policeman, 2012, etc.) explores in this memorable tale. It's a scenario worthy of Philip K. Dick: the U.S. is still part-slave, part-free, with the "Hard Four" statesa unified North and South Carolina foremost among themclinging resolutely to the old ways even as those pesky moralists the Europeans "draw no distinction between the slavery-practicing states and the slavery-tolerating ones" and as right-thinking Northerners figure out ways to resist the modern equivalent of the Fugitive Slave Act. Winters probes the possibilities: outside the Hard Four, who benefits from the trade in human flesh? Where do new slaves come from, now that transcontinental traffic is banned? How deeply can his antiheroic hero, a manumitted slave-turned-bounty hunter currently calling himself Victor, participate in the system without being forever stained? He has his motives, understandable if not noble, that send him careening into other people's self-interests; he's on the hunt for a runaway named Jackdaw who may have hopped a plane for China with a pile of Southern T-shirtsor who may instead have made his way to someplace relatively safe, like Indianapolis. For the most part, Winters neatly blends dystopian fiction with old-fashioned procedural. The story gets a little wobbly toward the end, with Boys from Brazil undertones more befitting sci-fi, a genre in which Winters has also worked. Readers with a strong attachment to verisimilitude may balk at the strange turn, but in the end, the twist makes good sense. If it lacks all the dramatic punch it might have hadthe storyline hesitates at a couple of key moments, just when Victor is making his most disturbing discoveriesWinters' yarn still works. Smart and well paced. The story could use a little fine-tuning, but it moves deftly from a terrific premise and builds to a satisfying conclusion. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
