The Styx

The Styx (2010) is a detective novel set in Florida in 1903. While the main storylines and characters are fictional, Edgar-award-winning author Jonathan King incorporates real events and people into the book, resulting in a novel rich in history as well as in intrigue.

The plot centers on protagonist Michael Byrne, the son of Irish immigrants, who is raised in the rough and tumble tenements of the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Byrne joins the police, then takes a job with the Pinkertons, a private detective agency also providing security services. Byrne is a man of principle, in the great tradition of detective fiction, with an uncanny eye for detail and a near-photographic memory of people and faces. Byrne is involved in an investigation into rampant corruption in the New York City government and police department, reflecting the real scandals that roiled New York in the days of Tammany Hall.

Having recently buried his mother, Byrne asks for an assignment that will get him out of the cutthroat politics of the city and take him to Florida where he believes he can find his brother, Danny, who left the family in search of his fortune several years before. The Pinkertons give Byrne a job as a security guard for the wealthy industrialist turned railroad baron, Henry Flagler; Byrne goes south on Flagler’s private train.



Flagler has built two hotels in Palm Beach, Florida: The Breakers and the Poinciana. Both are run on the labor of almost exclusively black staff, who live in a nearby shantytown called the Styx. Just before the train arrives, the Styx is burnt to the ground and a white man discovered dead. Marjory McAdams, the beautiful socialite daughter of one of Flagler’s closest associates, rushes to the scene, along with the head housekeeper, Ida May Fluery. The white man’s body is near where Shantice Carver’s home had been, and the corrupt white authorities immediately plan to arrest and frame her for his murder.

Marjory tries to help Shantice escape from the sheriff, but just after Byrne, Flagler, and the rest of his party arrive in Florida, Shantice is captured and brought to the local jail. Byrne and a man who is forced to use the name Carlos Santos and pretend to be Cuban so he can play winter league baseball against white players, as a black player could not, help Marjory try to prevent Shantice’s arrest.

The events that follow are the typical twists and convoluted turns of the detective novel: Byrne meets several unusual characters, discovers the dead body in the Styx was his older brother Danny, identifies the rich and powerful at the center of the cover-up of Danny’s murder, and is nearly assassinated in his pursuit of the truth. Marjory turns out to be corrupt, just like her father, and though initially allied with the black characters of the novel turns out to have been the one who took the deed to the land and set the fire that destroyed the homes of everyone living in the Styx.



In untangling the events of that evening, Michael discovers that his feckless brother was one of the “binder boys,” an entrepreneurial player in the explosive real estate market in Florida. Danny had possession of the title to the land on which the Styx was built. He had agreed to sell it to Mr. McAdams, at the same time agreeing to help Shantice and the Birches’ maid, Abigail Morrisette, extort money from Mr. Birch under threat of revealing to his wife that Mr. Birch regularly paid Shantice for sex. The night that Danny was supposed to hand over the deed to the land, Marjory organized a fair across the water, and all the residents of the Styx were sent there, ostensibly as a reward for their hard work. Marjory planned to meet Danny to obtain the deed and then burn the shantytown down so her father could claim the unoccupied land.

However, by the time Marjory arrives at their arranged meeting spot in the Styx, Mrs. Birch has already been there. She knew all about her husband’s indiscretions. Instead of paying Danny the blackmail money, she shot him in the throat and left that money stuffed into his mouth. Marjory sets the fire and flees with Danny’s briefcase with the deed inside.

After Shantice is arrested, Marjory hires Amadeus Faustus, a lawyer and former Civil War medic, to represent the accused. Faustus had met Danny Byrne before his death and recognizes his brother right away. He puts Michael through several tests of character to ensure he is not corrupt or morally weak as Danny had been, and, once satisfied, aides Byrne in his quest for the truth. They discover that Shantice is innocent, but Mrs. Birch murders her maid, Abby, to prevent her from being a witness to Shantice’s story. When Byrne confronts Mrs. Birch, she admits everything, confident that she will never be charged with a crime.



While the sheriff, local law enforcement, and the coroner are corrupt, the circuit judge assigned to Shantice’s case, John E. Born, is not. He recognizes Faustus from the Civil War battle of Stones River, and though they fought on opposite sides, he thanks Faustus for his heroic efforts to save the lives of the wounded, regardless of the uniform they wore. Born and Faustus are aligned in their desire for truth and justice, representing the healing of the schism between North and South. Byrne reveals the entire plot and crimes committed, naming Mrs. Birch as his brother and Abby’s killer. The judge forces the sheriff to say he will investigate the matter, but Flagler and his wealthy associates, including the Birches, return to the north without incident.

The novel ends with an actual historical event, the 1903 fire that destroyed the Breakers hotel. In the novel, Ida May Fluery sets the fire in retribution for the burning of the Styx, though in reality no such arson was suggested.

The book is full of historical details that highlight the racism and classism of the time. While the main plot is invented and some liberties taken with actual dates, the social and economic circumstances that lead King’s characters to lie, cheat, and murder are very real. This intermixing of actual events with fictional ones gives an unusual slant to the novel, but Byrne’s character is still firmly in the mode of the traditional private eye: he is tough, determined, has an unusual intelligence, is not fooled by women’s wiles, and has a strong sense of honor in a world of ambiguous morality. His triumph, in the end, is a hollow one: the real criminals go free and Byrne must agree to consort with them in exchange for more information about his father, missing for many years. This detail lays the ground for a sequel, though as of this writing none has yet appeared.