When Spiro, Maria and Anna Andrakis, a young immigrant family from Greece, are unwillingly thrust into the maelstrom of the Colorado Coalfield War (1913-1914), the most brutal labor conflict in American history, they must overcome a series of tragedies that change their lives forever. A Terrible Unrest is a novel of desperate bravery and horrendous violence, of unflinching loyalty, abject betrayal and human survival.
Paperback
978-1-78279-437-0
$22.95 | £12.99
8.5×5.5 inches | 216×140 mm
359PP
eBook
978-1-78279-436-3
$7.99 | £4.99
Published by Top Hat Books, an imprint of John Hunt Publishing
This book is available at bookstores, Amazon and directly from John Hunt Publishing https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/tophat-books/our-books/terrible-unrest
I am very proud of the reviews I’ve received. Here are three of which I’m especially proud.
The first is by John Baranski, a Professor of History at Camino College. Durango Herald.
Dave Gibson wrote a super review in the Socialist Review
I submitted A Terrible Unrest to the M.M Bennets Award for first time novelists. Linda Root, a well-established historical fiction writer, was on the awards committee and she published this review on Amazon:
I am a member of the M.m.Bennetts Award board and this was a submitted entry. I was one of three judges assigned it to read and score it. Perhaps the subject matter did not intrigue the other judges as it did me, because it very narrowly missed the cut. The level of pathos in this story is spellbinding and the framework in which it is told is true. The exploitation of America’s immigrants in the early years of the 20th century are not limited to stevedores and coolies. The Greeks families in A Terrible Unrest fled their native land to escape persecution and ended up being exploited by the private police who operated the mines for American’s wealthy entrepreneurs, and the official in the labor movement who were driven by ambitious and greed, just like the men they pinpointed as the enemy. This is a classic tale of the ugly parts of American expansion in the face of the Industrial Revolution. What sets it apart from John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath is the less sympathetic victims in Philip Duke’s novel. Steinbeck’s story deals with second and third generation American farmers who had set down roots in what became the Dustbowl. Duke’s families are recent immigrants who never had a chance to establish a homeland anywhere but in the company towns and labor camps the focus of A Terrible Unrest. Some of the incidents and characters in the story are true. Those with the courage to mix harsh reality with their entertainment should not miss reading A Terrible Unrest. The characters, especially the protagonist wife and mother who sees the danger coming, are well drawn and historically grounded. This is not a trivial book.
Philip Duke Author 