"Clara's Book"

Available in EPUB, MOBI, and PDF formats. Read on your Kindle, phone, tablet, computer and more

The Florida Lottery launched in 1988 with a pelican mascot and a cheerful jingle. Most Floridians have no idea they were already playing — just illegally, and at considerably higher personal risk. Bolita ran through Tampa's Cuban and Italian communities for nearly a century. Everybody played. Housewives, cigar rollers, dock workers, barbers. The numbers came from dreams and the dream book and which runner came to your door on Thursday. The raids were real, the arrests were real, and the women who worked inside the houses were arrested alongside the men. Clara Alvarez is fictional. Her ledger is not.