Dear Reader,

The history of Biloxi and the Mississippi Gulf Coast is colorful and complicated, and loaded with many larger than life characters. Though I grew up far away, I have always been intrigued by it. In college and law school, I made friends from “The Coast” and, well, let’s just say they were never dull.

Between 1940 and 1990 Biloxi was a small version of Las Vegas, with every vice imaginable. Everything was available and it was all illegal: drugs, prostitution, lots of gambling. The entire state was dry until the mid 1960’s, but Biloxi had more bars and beer halls than most big cities.

Add to this underworld the arrival of the infamous Dixie Mafia, and the vice was elevated to new levels.

In The Boys From Biloxi, I have borrowed shamelessly from Biloxi’s past and created a story about two boys who grew up in the same neighborhood, played baseball together as kids, then slowly drifted apart. One was attracted to organized crime. The other became a popular prosecutor.

The crossing of their paths later in life was inevitable.