My father always said there were three rules to making wine during Prohibition: keep it simple, don’t label the bottles, and don’t drink the product. I follow two of them. He didn’t follow any.
My name is Letty Hart and I take care of my family’s winery here in Los Angeles. By family, I mean me and my mother. After my father left, I stepped in with the lessons he taught me and taught myself the rest in order to continue the winemaking that helps our family survive.
Now it’s all routine, at least with the vineyard and the wines. Nothing else is the same from what I knew before. It’s all changed and in such little time. I don’t mean how the valley has evolved with new movie theatres, commercial buildings, and homes filling the land that used to be sparse.
I mean eight years ago, when the Eighteenth Amendment came crashing down and alcohol was no longer a viable way to provide for yourself or your family. Not just not viable, now illegal from here to the east coast.
Our neighbors abandoned their wineries, pulling out their vineyards to plant crops like avocados and citrus. The legal crops. Others tried to secretly continue with winemaking, holding onto the one profession they knew, but it was only a matter of time before agents came knocking at the doors with axes in their hands. The barrels, sturdy enough to hold gallons of wine, were no match for the strong swings, the red wine flooding into the dirt floor of the San Fernando Valley.
We managed to continue as we have a deal with the local church to provide altar wine, the one wine that’s still legal these days. Well, we were okay. Until the day that Father O’Leary came to the house and cancelled our contract, no longer needing us to provide him with sacramental wine. That’s when everything changed. I never meant to turn to bootlegging, but it’s funny how things like that happen. They take away everything you have and you’re left with only one chance to survive. One chance to make adjustments. So I did.
The Bootlegger’s Daughter
Genre: Historical Mystery
Release: May 2024
Format: Print, Digital, Audio
Purchase Link
In Prohibition-era Los Angeles, two women on opposite sides of the law must take control of their lives, make their marks, and try to survive. Even if it means crossing the line.
It’s 1927. Letty Hart’s father is long gone, but his old winery provides a meager wage and a legal livelihood for selling sacramental wine. But when that contract goes bust, Letty stumbles upon a desperate option: her father’s hidden cellar—and enough liquor to tempt Letty to bootleg the secret stash. In an underworld dominated by merciless men, Letty is building an empire.
Officer Annabel Forman deserves to be the first female detective in the LAPD. But after two years on the force, she’s still consigned to clerical work and policing dance halls. When Annabel connects a series of unsolved murders to bootlegging, it’s a chance at a real investigation. Under the thumb of dismissive male superiors, Annabel is building her case.
As their formerly uncompromised morals erode, Letty and Annabel are on a collision course—and determined to prove they’re every bit as ruthless and strong-willed as the powers that be who want to take them down.
About the author
Nadine Nettmann is a Certified Sommelier through the Court of Master Sommeliers and the author of the Agatha Award–nominated Sommelier Mystery series, which includes Decanting a Murder, Uncorking a Lie, and Pairing a Deception. Born in Los Angeles, she works full-time in the wine industry and enjoys discovering the history of the city she still calls home. For more information, visit nadinenettmann.com.