A novel of the civil rights movement through the eyes of a white family. The setting is 1961 Birmingham, Alabama, where the Fraley family owns a hotel which used to be a brothel, run by Fraley's deceased mother. The family's liberal leanings come into conflict with their mother's old lover, Bill Connor, the commissioner of public safety, who in real life organized white resistance to the civil rights movement. By the author of Night Ride Home.