This book is based on actual Boston history. Two main families are followed: a black man on the run, leaving his family behind, and a white family whose men are part of the police force. Woven in are Babe Ruth, the Great Influenza Epidemic of 1918-1919, the Boston Molasses Explosion in which an erupted tank caused a tsunami of over 3 feet of molasses to cover part of the city, the rise and fall of unionizing, including governmental responses of spying on and ferreting out Communists, NAACP members, other "Anti-American" groups, and the great Boston police strike and riots. Many of the key characters were true figures in politics at the time, such as Governor Calvin Coolidge. The book is long but engrossing and reads as a suspense thriller.