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Based on a true story, Honor unravels the murder of a young woman within the harrowing world of organized crime in 1920s Baltimore.
In her debut novel, A. B. Dozier delivers a fresh and compelling take on the old story of misogyny and organized crime. Honor shines a light on the machinations of the Black Hand, a notorious crime racket that once preyed on immigrant communities in Maryland and West Virginia. The brilliant narrative threads itself through the perspectives of witnesses to the crime and its aftermath. Through a kaleidoscope of voices, Dozier constructs a clear-eyed view of the community the young victim Bella had to navigate, from her diminished family, to the men that used and trafficked her body, to the friendships she formed, all the while remaining an independent woman, willing to defy societal norms―those set up by “respectable” society and, more dangerously, by the Black Hand.
This novel is based on an extraordinary true story. Thousands of people lined up for days outside the Baltimore morgue in the stifling heat of July 1922 for a glimpse of young Bella’s body. Newspapers shared the lurid details of the murder, speculating wildly on love affairs gone wrong. The investigation into her death would lead police to crack more than a dozen other homicide cases and to expose an organized crime network originating in Calabria, Italy, and stretching out of Baltimore across West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and beyond.
Although the events in this forgotten story took place a century ago, its themes of societal upheaval and injustice continue to haunt us. Dozier reminds us how within the worlds we inhabit, we each make utterly human decisions—significant and seemingly insignificant, honorable and dishonorable—that drive our very fate.
A.B. Dozier is a longtime human rights advocate. In her time off, she dabbles in genealogy. While carrying out family research in Spring 2020, a century-old newspaper article about the discovery of an unidentified body in Baltimore, caught her eye. A combination of pandemic lockdown and maternity leave provided ample time to go down and thoroughly explore that rabbit hole. What she discovered was a story that demanded to be recovered and told. She has a BA in International Relations from Randolph Macon Woman’s College and an MA in Conflict Resolution from Lancaster University (UK). Dozier lives in a one hundred-year-old house in the southeast corner of Washington, DC, with her husband, three sons, and one Maine Coon. Honor is her first novel.
