Richard Laliberte 
Thaumaturge of Providence 

Working-class Providence, Rhode Island, is poised on the eve of a new political millennium. Of the city’s fifteen districts, ward eleven is the most impoverished and racially diverse. As the year 2000 looms, local politics are complicated by: a secret society of heroin dealers, a Dominican Republic-based doomsday cult, an Ivy League journalism student, and a taxicab driver. City Council candidate Hector Lucian is predicted to win by a landslide, but will his past and possible nefarious connections ultimately destroy him and his neighborhood? Cab driver Leonardo Santoro becomes his sole confidant, while Brown University student, Eli Silverman, pieces together the mysterious candidate’s murky background.