"The Wicked City"

Sydney M. Williams

“The Wicked City”

Beatriz Williams

February 20, 2017

“But I always did wonder what became of Ginger?”

                                                                                                Aunt Julie speaking to her great-niece, Ella

                                                                                                Beatriz Williams (1972-)

The Wicked City

This is a fast-paced novel (her seventh) by my daughter-in-law, a New York Times best-selling author. Beatriz lives in Lyme with her husband, our son Sydney, and their four children. The story takes place in 1924 prohibition-era New York, and seventy-four years later in 1998 New York. Aunt Julie, born in 1902, is a flapper, and frequenter of the City’s speakeasies. In 1924 she befriended the story’s main character, Ginger. For purposes of historical perspective and to add mystery, Beatriz takes the reader back back and forth across time, and transports the reader from the City to Long Island, from coastal New Jersey rum-runners to moonshine centers in western Maryland.

“The Wicked City” is the first of three novels about New York City during prohibition and, yes, we will find out what became of Ginger in future stories. “Writers,” wrote Joe Bunting, a young author, “then, are the great connectors. We enable our readers and ourselves to experience the rest of humanity, to feel a part of the whole.” That describes Beatriz, and the characters and story she has created.