What a great historical mystery.

Blood & Whiskey: A Sacalisi Family Novel is full of intrigue, suspense, and an unexpected ending.

Meet Mia, an orphan and former gambling-hall hustler who loves nice clothes, loud parties, and high-stakes poker games. But tragedy and betrayal have a way of striking at the worst times, and her Sicilian blood demands three things: omertà, loyalty, and vengeance.

Great character development and storyline, highly recommend.

This book missed the mark a little for me. I'm not sure why I didn't enjoy it, I couldn't connect to the characters and found that I just didn't care about what was happening.

I surprisingly enjoyed "Blood & Whiskey" quite a lot. I normally don't really read Mafia books, but I loved this one. The characters were great and I loved that there weren't any overt romances that took away from the plot. I also liked reading about how intricate these bootlegger ventures were during the prohibition era. I'm definitely reading the next installments in the series.

I love Mafia books and this is no exception. I like the fact that the main character is a strong woman. It just shows that women can be just as ruthless as men. This is set in Chicago during the Prohibition. I highly recommend this book and will be reading this author again.

5 stars

This is more or less a family drama. But it is also so much more. Set in the 1920's during the Prohibition Era we meet Mia Scalisi and her older by four years brother Nick. They are orphaned at an early age and Nick raises Mia.

Mia loves to sing and dance and dreams of being in the pictures one day. However life has different plans for her. She and Nick work at a club owned by Sal Belomo who is a volatile man. While Mia does her entertainment, Nick is a wheeler-dealer and is putting together high stakes deals for bootlegged whiskey. He is Sal's Capo. Nick is also a hot head and gets himself in deep trouble.

Mia discovers another side of life and must plumb the depths of her strength of character and determination to rise to the top in what is definitely a man’s world. What matters over all is family – those who can be trusted and those who can't.

I really liked this book. It is well written and plotted. Ms. Allison painted her characters in such vivid colors that this reader was transported to 1920's Chicago with all the attendant sounds and smells. I liked Mia and wished she could have pursued her career in dance rather than turn the way she did. I liked the cameo appearances by such famous crime bosses such as Al Capone and others like him. This is my first Meredith Allison novel and I immediately went to Amazon to look at others of her books.

I want to thank NetGalley and Persnickety Publishing for forwarding to me a copy of this wonderful book for me to read, enjoy and review.