The Styx and Stones (Grit, Gamble and Grace)

West Palm Beach, 1909.

Progress is coming—and it has a price.

Jerome Blake and his wife, Althea, arrive with plans to go legitimate. An icehouse. A clean front. A chance to turn blood money into permanence. But in a Florida boomtown built on railroads, resorts, and stolen land, legitimacy is just another hustle.

When Jerome learns that a Black settlement known as the Styx is slated for demolition—quietly sold out from under its residents—he and Althea make a dangerous choice. They use their...