Jitterbug: A Bonaventura Cozy Mystery #1

It was an entirely different world in Fifties in America. You won't see much of this in the movies, except very occasionally. Enter here ... dance with us.

Vincente Bonaventura, an Italian gentleman farmer/tailor from the bayous of Louisiana sets out, after his beloved wife dies of Cholera, to make his fortune in something other than farming. His mother offers to raise his newborn daughter, Julietta. He refuses and insists on taking her with him.

He becomes a door-to-door salesman, selling everything he can from coast to coast, but runs into some misfortune to the tune of an old childhood "friend" who stashes uncut cocaine in his car from time to time.

We follow Vince and his daughter (and their rescued bulldog puppy) for eight years as they try to shake this cartel and stop being unwilling drug mules.

The book follows the three of them from the south to the east coast to Mexico to Chicago where they finally find some peace. 

See the Sixties sequel by the same author, Tie Dye. Julie as a smart, socially-conscious hippie chick.