Staff Picks
#BroaderBookshelf 2021:Read a Book by a Journalist (Fiction)
- Chantal W.
- Tuesday, May 18, 2021
Collection
One of our prompts for the 2021 #BroaderBookshelf Challenge is to read a book by a journalist, but if nonfiction is not your game then try your hand at these fiction offerings.
There are some great middle grade titles here if you want to try your hand at something different or if you have a kiddo with whom you would like to share the reading experience.
The White Tiger
A Novel
Published in 2008
Balram Halwai is a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher. Entrepreneur. Murderer. Over the course of seven nights, by the scattered light of a preposterous chandelier, Balram tells the terrible and transfixing story of how he came to be a success in life -- having nothing but his own wits to help him along.
The Next Person You Meet in Heaven
Published in 2018
"In this enchanting sequel to the number one bestseller The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom tells the story of Eddie's heavenly reunion with Annie--the little girl he saved on earth--in an unforgettable novel of how our lives and losses intersect. Fifteen years ago, in Mitch Albom's beloved novel, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, the world fell in love with Eddie, a grizzled war veteran- turned-amusement park mechanic who died saving the life of a young girl named Annie. Eddie's journey to heaven taught him that every life matters. Now, in this magical sequel, Mitch Albom reveals Annie's story. The accident that killed Eddie left an indelible mark on Annie. It took her left hand, which needed to be surgically reattached. Injured, scarred, and unable to remember why, Annie's life is forever changed by a guilt-ravaged mother who whisks her away from the world she knew. Bullied by her peers and haunted by something she cannot recall, Annie struggles to find acceptance as she grows. When, as a young woman, she reconnects with Paulo, her childhood love, she believes she has finally found happiness. As the novel opens, Annie is marrying Paulo. But when her wedding night day ends in an unimaginable accident, Annie finds herself on her own heavenly journey--and an inevitable reunion with Eddie, one of the five people who will show her how her life mattered in ways she could not have fathomed. Poignant and beautiful, filled with unexpected twists, The Next Person You Meet in Heaven reminds us that not only does every life matter,but that every ending is also a beginning--we only need to open our eyes to see it"-- Provided by publisher.
If Beale Street Could Talk
A Novel
Published in 2006
This novel is a moving story of love in the face of injustice. Told through the eyes of Tish, a nineteen-year-old girl, in love with Fonny, a young sculptor who is the father of her child, the story mixes the sweet and the sad. Tish and Fonny have pledged to get married, but Fonny is falsely accused of a terrible crime and imprisoned. Their families set out to clear his name, and as they face an uncertain future, the young lovers experience a kaleidoscope of emotions: affection, despair, and hope. In a love story that evokes the blues, where passion and sadness are inevitably intertwined, the author has created two characters so alive and profoundly realized that they are unforgettably ingrained in the American psyche.
The System of Dante's Hell
Published in 1965
Autobiographical novel of black radical writer (aka, LeRoi Jones). The novel follows a young black man living nomadically in big cities and small towns in the southern United States, and his struggles with segregation and racism. The book correlates the man's experience with Dante's Inferno, and includes a diagram of the fictional hell described by Dante. --wikipedia.com.
Broken Promise
Published in 2015
"From the New York Times bestselling author of No Safe House comes an explosive novel about the disturbing secrets of a quiet small town... After his wife's death and the collapse of his newspaper, David Harwood has no choice but to uproot his nine-year-old son and move back into his childhood home in Promise Falls, New York. David believes his life is in free fall, and he can't find a way to stop his descent. Then he comes across a family secret of epic proportions. A year after a devastating miscarriage, David's cousin Marla has continued to struggle. But when David's mother asks him to check on her, he's horrified to discover that she's been secretly raising a child who is not her own-a baby she claims was a gift from an "angel" left on her porch. When the baby's real mother is found murdered, David can't help wanting to piece together what happened-even if it means proving his own cousin's guilt. But as he uncovers each piece of evidence, David realizes that Marla's mysterious child is just the tip of the iceberg. Other strange things are happening. Animals are found ritually slaughtered. An ominous abandoned Ferris wheel seems to stand as a warning that something dark has infected Promise Falls. And someone has decided that the entire town must pay for the sins of its past... in blood"-- Provided by publisher.
A Noise Downstairs
A Novel
Published in 2018
"The New York Times bestselling author of No Time for Goodbye returns with a haunting psychological thriller that blends the twists and turns of Gillian Flynn with the driving suspense of Harlan Coben, in which a man is troubled by odd sounds for which there is no rational explanation"-- Provided by publisher.
Peter & the Starcatchers
Published in 2004
Don't even think of starting this book unless you're sitting in a comfortable chair and have lots of time. A fast-paced, impossible-to-put-down adventure awaits as the young orphan Peter and his mates are dispatched to an island ruled by the evil King Zarboff. They set sail aboard the Never Land, a ship carrying a precious and mysterious trunk in its cargo hold but the journey quickly becomes fraught with excitement and danger. Discover richly developed characters in the sweet but sophisticated Molly, the scary but familiar Black Stache, and the fearless Peter. Treacherous battles with pirates, foreboding thunderstorms at sea, and evocative writing immerse the reader in a story that slowly and finally reveals the secrets and mysteries of the beloved Peter Pan.
The Worst Class Trip Ever
Published in 2015
When the eighth grade civics class of Miami's Culver Middle School goes on a trip to Washington, D.C., Wyatt Palmer finds himself in deep trouble before the plane even lands because his best friend Matt's decided the men sitting behind them are terrorists--and it's up to the boys to stop them.
Fleishman is in Trouble
A Novel
Published in 2019
"Dr. Toby Fleishman wakes up each morning surrounded by women. Women who are self-actualized and independent and know what they want--and, against all odds, what they want is Toby. Who knew what kind of life awaited him once he finally extracted himself from his nightmare of a marriage? Who knew that there were women out there who would actually look at him with softness and desire? But just as the winds of his optimism are beginning to pick up, they're quickly dampened, and then extinguished, when his ex-wife, Rachel, suddenly disappears. Toby thought he knew what to expect when he moved out: weekends and every other holiday with the kids, some residual bitterness, tense co-parenting negotiations. He never thought that one day Rachel would just drop their children off at his place and never come back. As Toby tries to figure out what happened and what it means, all while juggling his patients at the hospital, his never-ending parental duties, and his new, app-assisted sexual popularity, his tidy narrative of a spurned husband is his sole consolation. But if Toby ever wants to really understand where Rachel went and what really happened to his marriage, he is going to have to consider that he might not have seen it all that clearly in the first place. A searing, funny, and electric debut from one of the most exciting writers working today, Fleishman Is In Trouble is an exploration of a culture trying to navigate the fault lines of an institution that has proven to be worthy of both our great wariness and our great optimism"-- Provided by publisher.
Legally Dead
A Novel
Published in 2008
U.S. Marshal Michael Venturi of the Witness Protection Program relocates a mobster, now a government witness, to a small rural town after creating a new identity for him. The man proves to be a monster unleashed on an unsuspecting community. The results are tragic. To make amends Venturi leaves the Marshals Service and assembles a team of close confidants to secretly create new identities for innocent men and women whose lives have been ruined through no fault of their own. And before being declared "legally dead" -- they have to die. The result is a combination of Extreme Makeover, Mission Impossible, and CSI -- the last in reverse. In these "deaths," some of them spectacular, phony forensics must be created to fit the "facts" and fool the experts. But when one of Venturi's clients is murdered, and Venturi's own loved ones are threatened, Venturi must call upon his former training in both the U.S. Marines Force Recon and the Marshals Service, as he is hunted by police, prosecutors, ruthless killers, and his own former federal colleagues.--From publisher description.
The Messenger
A Novel
Published in 2008
Two centuries ago, Tyler Hawthorne bargained for his life. In exchange, he became a Messenger, one who hears the final thoughts of the dying, and conveys their last messages to their loved ones. Since that time, his life has been nomadic and solitary until he meets Amanda Clark in the foothills above Los Angeles and grows closer to her, unaware that he is being pursued by an old enemy who will stop at nothing to destroy him, or that he can only leave his role of the Messenger behind at a dreadful cost.
The Water Dancer
A Novel
Published in 2019
"Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage--and lost his mother and all memory of her when he was a child--but he is also gifted with a mysterious power. Hiram almost drowns when he crashes a carriage into a river, but is saved from the depths by a force he doesn't understand, a blue light that lifts him up and lands him a mile away. This strange brush with death forces a new urgency on Hiram's private rebellion. Spurred on by his improvised plantation family, Thena, his chosen mother, a woman of few words and many secrets, and Sophia, a young woman fighting her own war even as she and Hiram fall in love, he becomes determined to escape the only home he's ever known. So begins an unexpected journey into the covert war on slavery that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia's proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the deep South to dangerously utopic movements in the North. Even as he's enlisted in the underground war between slavers and the enslaved, all Hiram wants is to return to the Walker Plantation to free the family he left behind--but to do so, he must first master his magical gift and reconstruct the story of his greatest loss. This is a bracingly original vision of the world of slavery, written with the narrative force of a great adventure. Driven by the author's bold imagination and striking ability to bring readers deep into the interior lives of his brilliantly rendered characters, The Water Dancer is the story of America's oldest struggle--the struggle to tell the truth--from one of our most exciting thinkers and beautiful writers"-- Provided by publisher.
The Black Echo
Published in 2017
For maverick LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch, the body in the drainpipe at Mulholland Dam is more than another anonymous statistic. This one is personal...because the murdered man was a fellow Vietnam "tunnel rat" who had fought side by side with him in a hellish underground war. Now Bosch is about to relive the horror of Nam. From a dangerous maze of blind alleys to a daring criminal heist beneath the city, his survival instincts will once again be tested to their limit. Pitted against enemies inside his own department and forced to make the agonizing choice between justice and vengeance, Bosch goes on the hunt for a killer whose true face will shock him.
The Late Show
Published in 2017
"Renée Ballard works the night shift in Hollywood, beginning many investigations but finishing none as each morning she turns her cases over to day shift detectives. A once up-and-coming detective, she's been given this beat as punishment after filing a sexual harassment complaint against a supervisor. But one night she catches two cases she doesn't want to part with: the brutal beating of a prostitute left for dead in a parking lot and the killing of a young woman in a nightclub shooting. Ballard is determined not to give up at dawn. Against orders and her own partner's wishes, she works both cases by day while maintaining her shift by night. As the cases entwine they pull her closer to her own demons and the reason she won't give up her job no matter what the department throws at her."-- from author website.
Paradise City
Published in 2015
Four strangers, each inhabitants of the same city, where the gulf between those who have too much and those who will never have enough is impossibly vast, collide in this novel of love, death, ambition and failure. Before it's over, they all discover that the capital has connected them in ways they could never have imagined.
The Party
Published in 2017
A taut psychological tale of obsession and betrayal set over the course of a dinner party, THE PARTY tells the story of two married couples who, in a single evening, will come to question everything they thought they knew about each other, as the long-buried secret at the heart of their friendship comes to the surface, culminating in an explosive act of violence. -- amazon.com
Great Expectations
Published in 2009
The orphaned Pip is serving as a blacksmith's apprentice when an unknown benefactor supplies the means for him to be educated in London as a gentleman of "great expectations."
A Book of Common Prayer
Published in 1995
When Charlotte travels to Boca Grande to find her fugitive daughter, she encounters Grace, a wealthy land-owner who knows too many secrets.
An Officer and a Spy
Published in 2014
"Robert Harris returns to the thrilling historical fiction he has so brilliantly made his own. This is the story of the infamous Dreyfus affair told as a chillingly dark, hard-edged novel of conspiracy and espionage. Paris in 1895. Alfred Dreyfus, a young Jewish officer, has just been convicted of treason, sentenced to life imprisonment at Devil's Island, and stripped of his rank in front of a baying crowd of twenty-thousand. Among the witnesses to his humiliation is Georges Picquart, the ambitious, intellectual, recently promoted head of the counterespionage agency that "proved" Dreyfus had passed secrets to the Germans. At first, Picquart firmly believes in Dreyfus's guilt. But it is not long after Dreyfus is delivered to his desolate prison that Picquart stumbles on information that leads him to suspect that there is still a spy at large in the French military. As evidence of the most malignant deceit mounts and spirals inexorably toward the uppermost levels of government, Picquart is compelled to question not only the case against Dreyfus but also his most deeply held beliefs about his country, and about himself. Bringing to life the scandal that mesmerized the world at the turn of the twentieth century, Robert Harris tells a tale of uncanny timeliness--a witch hunt, secret tribunals, out-of-control intelligence agencies, the fate of a whistle-blower--richly dramatized with the singular storytelling mastery that has marked all of his internationally best-selling novels"-- Provided by publisher.
The Dog Stars
Published in 2012
Surviving a pandemic disease that has killed everyone he knows, a pilot establishes a shelter in an abandoned airport hangar before hearing a random radio transmission that compels him to risk his life to seek out other survivors.
The River
Published in 2019
"Wynn and Jack have been best friends since freshman orientation, bonded by their shared love of mountains, books, and fishing. Wynn is a gentle giant, a Vermont kid never happier than when his feet are in the water. Jack is more rugged, raised on a ranch in Colorado where sleeping under the stars and cooking on a fire came as naturally to him as breathing. When they decide to canoe the Maskwa River in northern Canada, they anticipate long days of leisurely paddles and picking blueberries and nights of stargazing and reading paperback Westerns. But a wildfire making its way across the forest adds unexpected urgency to the journey. When they hear a man and woman arguing on the fog-shrouded riverbank and decide to warn them about the fire, their search for the pair turns up nothing and no one. But: The next day a man appears on the river, paddling alone. Is this the man they heard? And, if he is, where is the woman?"--Provided by publisher.
Bad Monkey
Published in 2013
Andrew Yancy, late of the Miami Police, soon-to-be-late of the Key West Police, has a human arm in his freezer. There is a logical explanation for that, but not for how and why it parted from its owner. Yancy thinks the boating-accident/shark-luncheon explanation is full of holes, and if he can prove murder, his commander might relieve him of Health Inspector duties, aka Roach Patrol. But first Yancy will negotiate an ever-surprising course of events, from the Keys to Miami to a Bahamian out island, with a crew of equally ever-surprising characters, including: the twitchy widow of the frozen arm; an avariciously idiotic real estate developer; a voodoo witch whose lovers are blinded-unto-death by her particularly peculiar charms; Yancy's new love, a kinky medical examiner; and the eponymous Bad Monkey.
Chomp
Published in 2012
When the difficult star of the reality television show "Expedition Survival" disappears while filming an episode in the Florida Everglades using animals from the wildlife refuge run by Wahoo Crane's family, Wahoo and classmate Tuna Gordon set out to find him while avoiding Tuna's gun-happy father.
Flush
Published in 2005
With their father jailed for sinking a river boat, Noah Underwood and his younger sister, Abbey, must gather evidence that the owner of this floating casino is emptying his bilge tanks into the protected waters around their Florida Keys home.
Hoot
Published in 2002
Roy, who is new to his small Florida community, becomes involved in another boy's attempt to save a colony of burrowing owls from a proposed construction site.
Razor Girl
A Novel
Published in 2016
"When Lane Coolman's car is bashed from behind on the road to the Florida Keys, what appears to be an innocent accident is anything but (this is Hiaasen!). Behind the wheel of the offending car is Merry Mansfield--the eponymous Razor Girl--so named for her unique, eye-popping addition to what might be an otherwise unexciting scam. But, of course--this is Hiaasen!--the scam is only the very beginning of a situation that's going to spiral crazily out of control while gathering in some of the wildest characters Hiaasen has ever set loose on the page. There's the owner of Sedimental Journey--the company that steals sand from one beach to restore erosion on another ... Dominick "Big Noogie" Aeola, the NYC mafia capo with a taste for the pinkest of sands ... Zeto, the small-time hustler who gets electrocuted trying to charge a Tesla ... Nance Buck, native Wisconsinite who's nonetheless the star of the red neck reality TV show, "Bayou Brethren" ... a psycho who goes by the name of Blister and who's more Nance Buck than Buck could ever be ... the multimillionaire product liability lawyer who's getting dangerously--and deformingly--hooked on the very product he's litigating against ... and Andrew Yancy--formerly Detective Yancy, busted to Key West roach patrol after he beat up his then-lover's husband with a Dustbuster--who's convinced that if he can just solve one more murder on his own, he'll get his detective badge back. That the Razor Girl may be the key to his success in this deeply ill-considered endeavor will be as surprising to him as anything else he encounters along the way--including the nine-pound Gambian pouched rats getting very used to the good life in the Keys ..."-- Provided by publisher.
Squeeze Me
A Novel
Published in 2020
"From the best-selling author of Skinny Dip and Razor Girl, a new novel that captures the Trump era with Hiaasen's inimitable savage humor and wonderful, eccentric characters. A surefire best seller. Carl Hiaasen's Squeeze Me is set among the landed gentry of Palm Beach. A prominent high-society matron--who happens to be a fierce supporter of the President and founding member of the POTUSSIES--has gone missing at a swank gala. When the wealthy dowager Kiki Pew Fitzsimmons is later found dead in a concrete grave, panic and chaos erupt. The President immediately declares that Kiki Pew was the victim of rampaging immigrant hordes. This, as it turns out, is far from the truth. Meanwhile, a bizarre discovery in the middle of the road brings the First Lady's motorcade to a grinding halt (followed by some grinding between the First Lady and a lovestruck Secret Service agent). Enter Angie Armstrong, wildlife wrangler extraordinaire, who arrives at her own conclusions after she is summoned to the posh island to deal with a mysterious and impolite influx of huge, hungry pythons . . . Completely of the moment, full of vim and vigor, and as irreverent as can be, Squeeze Me is pure, unadulterated Hiaasen"-- Provided by publisher.
Squirm
Published in 2018
Billy Dickens discovers that his mysterious father lives in Montana, so this summer Billy will fly across the country, hike a mountain, float a river, dodge a grizzly bear, shoot down a spy drone, and save his own father.
The Blessing Way
Published in 2009
Homicide is always an abomination, but there is something exceptionally disturbing about the victim discovered in a high lonely place, a corpse with a mouth full of sand, abandoned at a crime scene seemingly devoid of tracks or useful clues. Though it goes against his better judgment, Navajo Tribal Police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn cannot help but suspect the hand of a supernatural killer. There is palpable evil in the air, and Leaphorn's pursuit of a Wolf-Witch is leading him where even the bravest men fear, on a chilling trail that winds perilously between mysticism and murder.
The Director
A Novel
Published in 2014
After being told that his agency has been hacked, the director of the CIA launches a hunt into the hacker underground of Europe and America.
Bloodmoney
A Novel
Published in 2011
Someone in Pakistan is killing the members of a new CIA intelligence unit that is trying to buy peace with America's enemies. It falls to Sophie Marx, a young CIA officer with a big chip on her shoulder, to figure out who's doing the killing and why.
The Paladin
A Spy Novel
Published in 2020
"A daring, high-tech CIA operation goes wrong and is disowned. Without legal protection, Michael Dunne's only recourse is revenge. CIA operations officer Michael Dunne is tasked with infiltrating an Italian news organization that smells like a front for an enemy intelligence service. It is headed by an American journalist, but the self-styled "people's bandits" run a cyber operation unlike anything the CIA has seen before. Fast, slick and indiscriminate, they steal secrets from everywhere and anyone, andexploit them in ways the CIA can neither understand or stop. Dunne knows it is illegal to run a covert op on an American citizen or journalist; but he has never refused an assignment and he has his boss's assurance of protection. Soon after Dunne infiltrates the organization, his cover disintegrates. When news of the operation hits the papers, someone leaks Dunne's extra marital affairs and the CIA leaves him to take the fall. Now a year later and fresh out of jail, Dunne sets out to track down the peoplewho destroyed his life"-- Provided by publisher.
Immigrant, Montana
Published in 2018
"The author of the widely praised Lunch with a Bigot now gives us a remarkable novel--reminiscent of Teju Cole, W.G. Sebald, John Berger--about a young new immigrant to the U.S. in search of love: across dividing lines between cultures, between sexes, and between the particular desires of one man and the women he comes to love.The young man is Kailash, from India. His new American friends call him Kalashnikov, AK-47, AK. He takes it all in his stride: he wants to fit in--and more than that, to shine. In the narrative of his years at a university in New York, AK describes the joys and disappointments of his immigrant experience; the unfamiliar political and social textures of campus life; the indelible influence of a charismatic professor--also an immigrant, his personal history as dramatic as AK's is decidedly not; the very different natures of the women he loved, and of himself in and out of love with each of them. Telling his own story, AK is both meditative and the embodiment of the enthusiasm of youth in all its idealism and chaotic desires. His wry, vivid perception of the world he's making his own, and the brilliant melding of story and reportage, anecdote and annotation, picture and text, give us a singularly engaging, insightful, and moving novel--one that explores the varieties and vagaries of cultural misunderstanding, but is, as well, an impassioned investigation of love"-- Provided by publisher.
The Girl in the Spider's Web
Published in 2015
After receiving a call from a trusted source claiming to have vital information to the United States, journalist Mikael Blomkvist turns to hacker Lisbeth for help.
The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye
Published in 2017
Lisbeth Salander has been forged by a brutal childhood and horrific abuse. And repeated attempts on her life. The ink embedded in her skin is a constant reminder of her pledge to fight against the injustice she finds on every side. Confinement to the secure unit of a women's prison is intended as a punishment. Instead, Lisbeth finds herself in relative safety. Flodberga is a failing prison, effectively controlled by the inmates, and for a computer hacker of her exceptional gifts there are no boundaries. Mikael Blomkvist makes the long trip to visit every week - and receives a lead to follow for his pains, one that could provide an important expose for Millennium: Salander tells him to check out Leo Mannheimer, a seemingly reputable stockbroker from Stockholm, somehow connected to the long-ago death of a child psychologist - and to the psychiatric unit where Lisbeth was an involuntary patient as a child. Lisbeth knows she is coming closer to solving the mysteries of her early life; and even within the confines of the prison, she feels the deadly influence exerted by her twin sister. Salander will stand up for what she believes in. She will find out the truth. Whatever the cost.
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
Published in 2010
If and when Lisbeth Salander recovers, she'll be taken back to Stockholm to stand trial for three murders. With the help of her friend, journalist Mikael Blomkvist, she will not only have to prove her innocence, but also identify and denounce those in authority who have allowed the vulnerable, like herself, to suffer abuse and violence. And, on her own, she will plot revenge--against the man who tried to kill her, and the corrupt government institutions that very nearly destroyed her life.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Published in 2008
The disappearance forty years ago of Harriet Vanger, a young scion of one of the wealthiest families in Sweden, gnaws at her octogenarian uncle, Henrik Vanger. He is determined to know the truth about what he believes was her murder. He hires crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist, recently at the wrong end of a libel case, to get to the bottom of Harriet's disappearance. Lisbeth Salander, a twenty-four-year-old, pierced, tattooed genius hacker, possessed of the hard-earned wisdom of someone twice her age--and a terrifying capacity for ruthlessness--assists Blomkvist with the investigation. This unlikely team discovers a vein of nearly unfathomable iniquity running through the Vanger family, an astonishing corruption at the highest echelon of Swedish industrialism--and a surprising connection between themselves.--From publisher description.
Baltimore Blues
Published in 2006
Downsized ex-reporter Tess Monaghan spends her days working part-time at the bookstore owned by sexy Aunt Kitty and trying not to fall into the disgustingly polluted Patapsco from her city-owned boat. When rowing buddy Rocky pays her what looks like a fortune to follow his fiance, the trail leads to murder with Rocky the prime suspect.
The Mermaids Singing
Published in 2007
This was the summer he discovered what he wanted?at a gruesome museum of criminology far off the beaten track of more timid tourists. Visions of torture inspired his fantasies like a muse. It would prove so terribly fulfilling. The bodies of four men have been discovered in the town of Bradfield. Enlisted to investigate is criminal psychologist Tony Hill. Even for a seasoned professional, the series of mutilation sex murders is unlike anything he's encountered before. But profiling the psychopath is not beyond him. Hill's own past has made him the perfect man to comprehend the killer's motives. It's also made him the perfect victim. A game has begun for the hunter and the hunted. But as Hill confronts his own hidden demons, he must also come face-to-face with an evil so profound he may not have the courage?or the power?to stop it... The Mermaids Singing is a chilling and taut psychological mystery from Val McDermid.
Gone with the Wind
Published in 2011
The turbulent romance of Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler is shaped by the ravages of the Civil War and Reconstruction.
The Things They Carried
A Work of Fiction
Published in 2009
This work depicts the heroic young men of Alpha Company as they carry the emotional weight of their lives to war in Vietnam in a patchwork account of a modern journey into the heart of darkness. They battle the enemy (or maybe more the idea of the enemy), and occasionally each other. In their relationships we see their isolation and loneliness, their rage and fear. They miss their families, their girlfriends and buddies; they miss the lives they left back home. Yet they find sympathy and kindness for strangers (the old man who leads them unscathed through the mine field, the girl who grieves while she dances), and love for each other, because in Vietnam they are the only family they have.
Before I Forget
Published in 2009
"A man recently diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease takes a road trip to visit his ailing, estranged father, along with his troubled teen-aged son"--Provided by publisher.
Freeman
A Novel
Published in 2012
"At the end of the Civil War, an escaped slave first returns to his old plantation and then walks across the ravaged South in search of his lost wife"--Provided by the publisher"-- Provided by publisher.
Freeman
A Novel
Published in 2012
A compelling, important, page-turning historical novel set at the end of the Civil War, in which an escaped slave first returns to his old plantation and then walks across the ravaged South in search of his lost wife.
Grant Park
Published in 2015
"Grant Park is a page-turning and provocative look at black and white relations in contemporary America, blending the absurd and the poignant in a powerfully well-crafted narrative that showcases Pitts's gift for telling emotionally wrenching stories. Grant Park begins in 1968, with Martin Luther King's final days in Memphis. The story then moves to the eve of the 2008 election, and cuts between the two eras as it unfolds. Disillusioned columnist Malcolm Toussaint, fueled by yet another report of unarmed black men killed by police, hacks into his newspaper's server to post an incendiary column that had been rejected by his editors. Toussaint then disappears, and his longtime editor, Bob Carson, is summarily fired within hours of the column's publication. While a furious Carson tries to find Toussaint-at the same time dealing with the reappearance of a lost love from his days as a 60s activist-Toussaint is abducted by two improbable but still-dangerous white supremacists plotting to explode a bomb at Obama's planned rally in Grant Park. Toussaint and Carson are forced to remember the choices they made as idealistic, impatient young men, when both their lives were changed profoundly by their work in the civil rights movement. "-- Provided by publisher.
Gideon's Sword
Published in 2011
"At age 12, Gideon Crew witnessed the brutal murder of his father. More than 20 years later, Gideon gets his revenge. But then a mysterious witness steps forward to confront Gideon on his crime---and offer him the chance of a lifetime"--Provided by publisher.
The Relic
Published in 1996
Days before a massive exhibition at the New York Museum of Natural History, visitors are being murdered. Autopsies indicate that the killer cannot be human. The museum's directors decide to go ahead with the bash in spite of the murders. Now museum researcher Margo Green must find out who or what is doing the killing. Does she have time to stop a massacre?
Tyrannosaur Canyon
Published in 2006
In a post-apocalypse tale, a long-missing moon rock, a killing in a New Mexico canyon, a murderously ambitious scientist, and other factors contribute to the world's greatest scientific discovery.
Delicious!
A Novel
Published in 2014
Working as a public relations hotline consultant for a once-prestigious culinary magazine, Billie Breslin unexpectedly enters a world of New York restaurateurs and artisanal purveyors while reading World War II letters exchanged between a plucky 12-year-old and James Beard.
The Midnight Show Murders
A Billy Blessing Novel
Published in 2010
Sequel to the author's mystery debut, "The Morning show murders." Professional chef turned amateur sleuth Billy Blessing finds himself in hot water, when a brutal killing cancels a TV show -- and its host -- during it debut. -- Dust jacket.
The Talk Show Murders
A Billy Blessing Novel
Published in 2011
"After waking up the neighborhood with The Morning Show Murders, and keeping readers up late solving The Midnight Show Murders, Al Roker returns with his most tantalizing mystery to date. Celebrity chef turned sleuth Billy Blessing finds his plate full of danger once again, as secrets from his long-buried past threaten to make a comeback. Before Billy had his five-star restaurant in New York, before he was tapped to co-host the morning show Wake Up, America! and travel with it for a week in the Windy City--before he even assumed the name Billy Blessing--he lived a totally different life under a very different identity: as wily con man Billy Blanchard. Caught trying to run a scam on a shady Detroit businessman, Billy did time for his crimes, reinvented himself, and has successfully kept that part of his past covered up ever since. But when he and Eddie Patton, a nosy ex-cop with a long memory, are guests on a popular Chicago TV talk show, the off-camera chat turns to blackmail. And Billy may have no choice but to pay up or see the embarrassing truth from being blogcast to the world on Patton's true crime website. This being Chicago, secrets have a way of getting out--and getting people killed. When Patton winds up dead in his apartment only hours after trying to shake Billy down, it's just the first in a string of killings that has America's most beloved TV host scrambling for clues, unsure who his friends are, and desperate to clear his name before he becomes the media's latest poster child for celebrity scandal. Throw in a budding romance with a visiting movie star and Billy Blessing may have finally gotten himself into one sticky situation even he can't talk his way out of. Fast-paced, funny, and bubbling over with inside scoop on the business they call show, The Talk Show Murders is Al Roker mystery fiction at its delicious, dishy best"-- Provided by publisher.
The Piranhas
The Boy Bosses of Naples
Published in 2018
"Novel centering on the roving gangs of young boys in Naples"-- Provided by publisher.
The Blood is Still
Published in 2021
"When a man in eighteenth-century Highland dress is found dead on the site of the Battle of Culloden, where Bonnie Prince Charlie led his forces to a rout seared into Scottish memory, Rebecca Connolly takes up the case for the Chronicle. A controversial film about the rebellion and battle is being shot nearby, and it has drawn the ire of the right-wing nationalist movement Spirit of the Gael. Is there some link between the murder—the weapon used to impale the man leaves no doubt it was murder—and Spirit of the Gael or the shadowy militant group New Dawn, thought to be associated with them? Meanwhile, in the working-class part of town, Rebecca's assignment to cover a protest against the placement of a convicted child molester into the community leads her to Mo Burke, the unlikely protest leader. Mo is a formidable woman, but she is also the matriarch of a known crime family and usually prefers to shun the spotlight. What has drawn her out? And what of her two grown sons, who share in the family business? The older one, Nolan, with Ben Affleck good looks, is clearly intrigued by Rebecca, as she is by him, despite her better instincts to steer clear of their dangerous, violent world. And then another body is found, this one wearing the Redcoat uniform of the victorious British army."--Amazon.
Thunder Bay
A Thriller
Published in 2020
"When reporter Rebecca Connolly gets a tip that suspected murderer Roddie Drummond will be returning to the island of Stoirm, she smells a story. Though never convicted in the death of his girlfriend Mhairi fifteen years earlier, Drummond is still guilty in the eyes of many islanders, and his return for his mother's funeral is sure to stir up old resentments, hatreds, possibly even violence. Rebecca has another reason for going to Stoirm. Her own father came from there, but he never went back, and he always refused to speak of it or say what drove him away. Defying her editor, Rebecca joins forces with local photographer Chazz Wymark to dig into the mystery surrounding Mhairi's death and her unexplained last words, "Thunder Bay"--the secluded spot on the west coast of the island where, according to local lore, the souls of the dead set off into the afterlife. When a string of violent events erupts across the island, Rebecca discovers the power of secrets, and she must decide what to bury, and what to bring into the light."-- Provided by publisher.
The Devil May Dance
A Novel
Published in 2021
In a fast-paced sequel to The Hellfire Club, Charlie and Margaret Marder, political stars in 1960s Washington D.C., arrive in Los Angeles on their latest case, only to be pursued by sinister forces from Hollywood's stages to the newly founded Church of Scientology.
The Hellfire Club
Published in 2018
"Charlie Marder, a World War II veteran and popular academic, is an unlikely congressman. Thrust into office by his power-broker father's connections, Charlie is determined to use his new position for good. He quickly learns, however, that in 1950s Washington, little is as it seems. Struggling to navigate the treacherous waters alongside real-life figures such as President Dwight Eisenhower, Senator John F. Kennedy, and Roy Cohn, Charlie is confronted by a world in the throes of McCarthyism, where no one trusts anyone. His education in the compromising and occasionally illegal ways of Washington makes him question his own ethical compass and the morality of men he admires, including his father. Alongside his pregnant wife, Margaret, a zoologist with ambitions of her own, Charlie struggles to do what is right while learning more about the mysterious circumstances of his predecessor's death. Amid the swirl of glamorous and powerful politicians and businessmen, a fatal car accident plunges Charlie and Margaret into an underworld of backroom deals, secret societies, and a conspiracy that could change the course of history. When Charlie learns too much, he has to fight not only for his principles and his newfound political career ... but for his life.-- Dust jacket.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Published in 2014
"The classic boyhood adventure tale, updated with a new introduction by noted Mark Twain scholar R. Kent Rasmussen In recent years, neither the persistent effort to "clean up" the racial epithets in Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn nor its consistent use in the classroom have diminished, highlighting the novel's wide-ranging influence and its continued importance in American society. An incomparable adventure story, it is a vignette of a turbulent, yet hopeful epoch in American history, defining the experience of a nation in voices often satirical, but always authentic"-- Provided by publisher.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Published in 2014
"The classic boyhood adventure tale, updated with a new introduction by noted Mark Twain scholar R. Kent Rasmussen. A consummate prankster with a quick wit, Tom Sawyer dreams of a bigger fate than simply being a "rich boy." Yet through the novel's humorous escapades-from the famous episode of the whitewashed fence to the trial of Injun Joe-Mark Twain explores the deeper themes of the adult world, one of dishonesty and superstition, murder and revenge, starvation and slavery."-- Provided by publisher.
Devil's Gonna Get Him
Published in 1995
Newark PI and single mother Tamara Hayle is hired by a black investment banker to tail his stepdaughter's new boyfriend, something Tamara is reluctant to do since he was her boyfriend once. But when the banker is murdered and an apparently innocent woman is accused of doing it, Tamara swings into high gear to probe Newark's black urban world for clues.
Hush
A Novel
Published in 2010
So as not to jeopardize her case for child custody, Lake Warren is forced to lie to the police after having just been intimate with the flirtatious Dr. Keaton who has been murdered. Wanting to protect herself from being charged with the crime, she begins her own search for the truth--not realizing that she is dangerously close to dark secrets, both about Keaton and the advanced fertility clinic they've been working for.
The Sixes
A Novel
Published in 2011
"From the New York Times bestselling author of Hush and Cosmopolitan's editor-in-chief comes a new standalone thriller set in a college-town where a campus death sends one woman on a quest for truth and into the clutches of a deadly secret society"-- Provided by publisher.
The Bonfire of the Vanities
Published in 2008
Sherman McCoy, a young investment banker in Manhattan, finds himself arrested following a freak accident and becomes involved with prosecutors, politicians, the press, and assorted hustlers.
A Man in Full
A Novel
Published in 2001
A satire on America featuring a capitalist trying to avoid ruin. The hero is Charlie Croker of Atlanta whose plantation and skyscraper face repossession by banks for non-repayment of a loan. One way out might be to request leniency in return for hushing up a rape.