Bodee Rivers has come to New York City after the death of his Mother to find his Grandmother and find some answers. His grandmother, Juba, welcomes him with open-arms, but does tell him he must find work. She gives him a list of places in the area to stay away from. Finding a job for a young black man isn’t easy as he soon finds out. He ends up doing the books for one of the places he is told to stay away from, although he only works until 4pm. However, one day, he runs into the Whyo gang and one member in particular, McFarland. The altercation was solved for all concerned except McFarland who had come from Chicago and wasn’t fitting in. McFarland vowed to get even with Bodee.

Bodee then goes to work on the harbor cruises. He gets a flashback to the past when he is on the first ship. He senses something is wrong or will go wrong. However, who should he tell? Who would believe a black man who senses the future? All Bodee can do is be ready for anything.

The book reads very smoothly and contains a lot of references to history. At the end, Allen tells the reader what is true and what isn’t which helps the reader a lot. The book is really good for just reading as well as for history it contains.

The scene is in New York. We are talking the turn of the century, June of 1904. Bodee wants to play ball on the Colored team The Brooklyn Monitors. At this time he doesn’t have the upper body strength to make the team.

Bodees grandmother Juba is having a feeling Bodee is coming. She isn’t sure when but soon. Juba lives in an area of New York that is racially divided and there is a code to follow if you want to survive. Juba is a major influence in this area, no one goes against her. Juba convinces Bodee to stay with her so she can help him figure out his visions and maybe fatten him up a bit. Bodee is written as a completely human figure with all the frailties of insecurity and cowardice. He finds out he is not a quitter and is actually a hero of the Slocum disaster and Knickerbocker Steam Ship Company.

I’m not going to give away too much of the story because you really should read this and hope you enjoy it as much as I did. The storyline is truthful and honest. That is part of the reason I like A. Robert Allen’s writing. He uses fact and fiction and does not go too far from the truth and the story stays believable. I really enjoyed this ebook so much, thank you A. Robert Allen.

In 1904, Minetta Lane is the name of a street in The Bend, a section of Manhattan, populated by both Blacks and Whites, with an understanding that each group stays within their own boundaries and keeps to themselves. We are introduced to a young black man, Bodee Rivers, who has come in search of the grandmother he doesn’t remember. Grandmother Juba was from a priestly Ashanti family, and as the story progresses, Bodee discovers he has inherited the ability to see the future through his dreams.

Additional individuals introduced at the beginning of the book are there to add “flavor” and an understanding of the neighborhood’s unsavory character, but the real story takes place in Part Three, during the General Slocum Steamboat Disaster. Bodee has already befriended several people, blacks and whites, and has acquired a job working for the steamboat company. He foresees “something upsetting,” but his first response has always been to “run away.” This time he decides to live up to his name, Bodua, which means “protector,” and stay to see the difficult premonition through until the end.

The book started out slowly, with so many assorted characters, that it took time for me to sort everyone out, but when the main story started, it was captivating. This fictional story, based on actual events (as explained by the author in the Historical Notes and Liberties section), certainly shows the research involved in the writing of this fact based novel

The setting is 1904 in a dangerous area of New York City nicknamed The Bend. The Bend has an unusual race-based code where black residents are accepted, whites are rejected and Irish gangsters are respected. Bodee Rivers, Juba and Blood are the main characters who confront the racial differences in the Bend through their own personal connection and bond. Bodee is an interesting character who struggles with an internal power that tests his strength and endurance to do the right thing while struggling to be accepted by the whites in other neighborhoods.

A. Robert Allen has once again crafted a memorable addition to his fictional series that is full of historical facts. The characters are well shaped with intertwined story lines creating a smooth blend of fact and fiction. The various facets of the story are pulled together with a gripping climax to keep the reader engaged to the very end. The fast pace and short chapters kept me turning the pages while the other part of me did not want the book to end.

Each book in this series has found a special place in my heart. I can only hope the fourth book is in the works. A. Robert Allen is an author to follow for future publications.

Bodee Rivers has come to New York City after the death of his Mother to find his Grandmother and find some answers. His grandmother, Juba, welcomes him open-armed but does tell him he must find work. She gives him a list of places in the area to stay away from. Finding a job for a young black man isn’t easy as he soon finds out. He ends up going the books for one of the places he is told to stay away from, although he only works until 4pm. However, one day, he runs into the Whyo gang and one member in particular, McFarland. The altercation was solved for all concerned except McFarland who had come from Chicago and wasn’t fitting in. McFarland vowed to get even with Bodee.

Bodee then goes to work on the harbor cruises. He gets a flashback to the past when he is on the first ship. He senses something is wrong or will go wrong. However, who should he tell? Who would believe a black man who senses the future? All Bodee can do is be ready for anything.
The book reads very smoothly and contains a lot of references to history. At the end, Allen tells the reader what is true and what isn’t which helps the reader a lot. The book is really good for just reading as well as for history it contains.

The plot centers on Bodee, a young black man who has just moved from Brooklyn to lower Manhattan, where he lives with his grandmother. Bodee has a unique tatent which complicates his life. One huge complication arises with all the characters aboard a burning steamship. This
part of the book is intense, and I sped through the pages hoping for a resolution. It is during and after this conflagration that we see Bodee has changed his attitude, and has become the man he and his relatives always wanted him to be. The memory of the fire will linger with me, as will many other scenes in the novel. The minor incident between Bodee and the Whyo, and the resultant treatment of the gang member by the gang, stood out as an extreme need to condone violence to enforce a code of behavior.

I would be a “spoiler” if I kept listing parts of this book that impressed me. I finished it in two days, because it was so absorbing. I plan to read the author’s two other books.

After several attempts at finding work, Bodee becomes a porter for the Knickerbocker Steamship Company and is set to work on their flagship the S. S. Grand Republic. After only a short time on the job, he is loaned for the to the S.S. General Slocum which will be hosting a group of over one thousand German immigrant families on a church outing. Bodee soon realizes that all of his dreams and visions have led him to this place and the weight of impending disaster presses heavily on him. Will the skinny youth who usually runs from confrontation be strong enough to stand up to fate or will he choose to save himself? Will he call upon the strength of his ancestors that courses through his veins and help others in need? A secondary story of Edward Murphy Junior, the abandoned child turned Newsie, gives a glimpse of another facet of life during this period. His friendship with Two-Tooth Tommy and Mrs. Gerda Heinrich is endearing.

Minetta Lane is the third volume in A. Robert Allen’s “Slavery and Beyond” series; to this reader it is by far his best work to date. The story is fast-paced and although chock full of historical facts and scenarios it is far from being a textbook. Author Allen has set his engaging and multi-layered characters against the backdrop of turn-of-the-century New York City and one of the city’s most horrific disasters.

This reviewer gives Minetta Lane a solid five stars and looks forward to more from this exceptional author.

This is an exceptional novel. How can the grandson of a slave affect and change the profile of a community? A grandson without the fire in his belly of his people still touching the life line of slavery? How can he find rewarding work and a loving relationship and contribute to the growth of his neighborhood and community without that ability to focus totally on achieving equal recognition?

Bodee Rivers finds a way to straddle that line and bring his simple sense of humanity to bear on his neighborhood and his city. The burning June 15, 1905 of the excursion boat the General Slocum was the most deadly river disaster in the history of the US. Of the thirteen hundred passengers aboard one thousand and thirty died in the blaze. Bodee Rivers rescued many of those survivors. It turns out bravery and the recognition of a shared humanity doesn’t really have a color.

Minetta Lane is the third in a series, each stand alone, called Slavery and Beyond. All are exceptional. Failed Moments and A Wave From Mama are novels we can all enjoy and bring away a link to understanding one another.

Allen is adept at the use of dialect, and uses it in surprisingly authentic ways, as he switches from Irish, to German, to Black voices. Readers will become emotionally involved with his characters, who seem real enough to all be historical people, even the fictional ones. I was grateful to Allen that he provided an afterward at the end to sort out the people, places, and events into actual and fictional aspects.

I highly recommend Minetta Lane as a book that will stick with me, for teaching me about a period of history I knew little about, and places, events, and people that helped make our country who we are, for good and for ill, but mostly for good.