American Pied Piper Book Reviews

American Pied Piper by Sam Foster Book Summary

At the dawn of the 20th century, Beardstown, Illinois, is a city of contradiction. A town of river rats, gamblers, and rail-yard workers, it's also filled with the accoutrements and refinements that accompany wealth . . . whatever its provenance. In Beardstown, the God-fearing don't just live side-by-side with the sinners-they often are the sinners.

Throughout the first half of the century, the state's attorney is always a McHugh, a Beardstown family that has spent generations fostering the town's prosperity by keeping the balance between virtue and vice. For the McHughs, knowing when to look the other way is half the job. But when the young, Yale-educated Milt McHugh returns from WWII to take up his father's position, he approaches the role with a very different sense of morality, as well as a desire to clean the town's slate for good-public opinion be damned.

Forty years later, Milt is faced with a town in decline and the prospective fraud trial of a gaggle of corrupt investors known as the "Beardstown Ladies." As he looks back on his life, his work, and the town his courage and moral fiber has created, he wonders: Was the sacrifice of freedom at the altar of decency worth the price the town has paid?

Following the people of Beardstown through a century of upheaval, renewal, and decay-and traveling from Prohibition-era Chicago to London and the Pacific during WWII to the soundstage of the Phil Donohue Show-American Pied Piper is the final chapter in a trilogy tracing the rise and fall of the American Midwest.

👋 Do you love American Pied Piper books? Please share your friends!

American Pied Piper (Sam Foster) Book Reviews 2024

Sam Foster - American Pied Piper Discussions & Comments

Have you read this book yet? What do you think about American Pied Piper by Sam Foster book? Ask the bookpedia.co community a question about American Pied Piper!