There are four states where slavery is legal, and still practiced. Underground Airlines throws readers into an America where the Civil War never happened. There’s a lot of questions asked, a lot of answers gradually given, and a constant tension that underscores almost every situation, and only gets thicker as the book progresses.īut really, this book is a hell of a lot more than that. In its core, most base state, this is a thriller/mystery. Underground Airlines was different than I expected it to be. Winters, though I understand that he has some other books out that reviewers I really respect have absolutely loved. He really made the protagonist come to life and had a smooth and effortless way of slipping in and out of roles, which is necessary for the book. Now, before I say anything, let me say that William DeMeritt is a new narrator to me, but I honestly can’t think of a person better suited to reading this book. I was lucky enough to come across an audio copy of Underground Airlines on my library’s website.

Underground Airlines is a ground-breaking novel, a wickedly imaginative thriller, and a story of an America that is more like our own than we’d like to believe.

But in pursuing Jackdaw, Victor discovers secrets at the core of the country’s arrangement with the Hard Four, secrets the government will preserve at any cost. Victor believes himself to be a good man doing bad work, unwilling to give up the freedom he has worked so hard to earn. But his strange, increasingly uncanny pursuit is complicated by a boss who won’t reveal the extraordinary stakes of Jackdaw’s case, as well as by a heartbreaking young woman and her child–who may be Victor’s salvation. In this version of America, slavery continues in four states called “the Hard Four.” On the trail of a runaway known as Jackdaw, Victor arrives in Indianapolis knowing that something isn’t right–with the case file, with his work, and with the country itself.Īs he works to infiltrate the local cell of a abolitionist movement called the Underground Airlines, tracking Jackdaw through the back rooms of churches, empty parking garages, hotels, and medical offices, Victor believes he’s hot on the trail. A young black man calling himself Victor has struck a bargain with federal law enforcement, working as a bounty hunter for the US Marshall Service in exchange for his freedom.

Underground airlines book review