The Cold Millions

Gig and Rye Dolan have nothing but each other and whatever odd jobs they can find in early-twentieth-century Spokane. Gig throws himself into union organizing against exploitative employers, and when his younger brother Rye's turn on the soapbox catches the attention of real-life labor activist Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Rye is pulled into a world of strikes, corrupt police, and a wealthy businessman determined to crush the movement — with Gig's life on the line.

Jess Walter grounds this historical novel in the real Spokane free-speech fights of 1909, using the Dolan brothers to dramatize America's early twentieth-century class divide and the human cost of the labor movement's fight for basic dignity.