When Rick Van Warner found himself searching abandoned buildings and dangerous streets looking for his missing son, he had no idea that the synthetic, pill-form heroin that had snared his teen was already killing so many. In the years of pain and heartache that followed as he tried to save his son from opioid addiction, Van Warner discovered what the American public is just now becoming aware of: opioids prescribed for even minor pain relief are so addictive that even a few days of use can create dependency. On Pills and Needles is a memoir that also serves as a wake-up call and crash course in opioid addiction. Through his harrowing personal story, Van Warner exposes the common causes of opioid addiction, effective and ineffective ways it has been treated, and how families can walk alongside loved ones who are dealing with the daily realities of addiction.

On Pills and Needles

The second in the action-packed new series from Ralph Compton writer, John Shirley, takes traditional Westerns on a wild ride with the epic adventures of master gunfighter, horseman, and Civil War veteran Cleveland Trewe as he and his strong partner, Bernice, fight for survival in 1880s Nevada … Civil War veteran Cleveland Trewe stumbles onto a bizarre cult in the Sierra Nevada mountains—where the faithful are healed and fates are sealed … in blood. They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. But it’s hard to know what’s going on inside the twisted mind of Magnus Lamb, the charismatic leader of an isolated logging town known for its healing hot springs. Some might say he’s created a peaceful utopia here on Gunmetal Mountain. But for Cleveland Trewe and his lovely traveling companion Berry, this little piece of heaven is more like hell on Earth … Cleve and Berry first discover the town after an encounter with a dangerous band of Indians. Cleve vows to find “the Coyote,” a young brave last seen headed for the strange settlement of Lambsville. At first, Cleve and Berry are charmed by the town’s natural beauty and simple way of life. But soon they see the community for what it really is: a brainwashed cult with some oddball beliefs, a rigid caste system, and a leader who thinks he’s the new Messiah. This not-so-innocent Lamb has heard about Cleve’s legendary gunfighting skills and wants him to lead an army to expand his power across the West. It’s bound to be a blood-soaked mission, and Cleve wants no part of it. But if he refuses, there’ll be hell to pay …

The Cleve Trewe Westerns

Gunmetal Mountain

The tight-knit residents of Blue Moon Mountain, nestled high in the Colorado Mountains, form an interconnected community of those living off the land, stunned by the beauty and isolation all around them. So when, at the onset of winter, the town veterinarian commits a violent act, the repercussions of that tragedy will be felt all across the mountainside, upending their lives and causing their paths to twist and collide in unexpected ways. The housecleaner rediscovering her sexual appetite, the farrier who must take in his traumatized niece, the grocer and her daughter, the therapist and the teacher, reaching out to the world in new and surprising ways, and the ragged couple trapped in a cycle of addiction and violence. They will all rise and converge upon the blue hour—the l’heure bleu—the hour of twilight, a time of desire, lust, honesty. The strong, spirited people of Blue Moon Mountain must learn to navigate the line between violence and sex, tenderness and the hard edge of yearning, and the often confusing paths of mourning and lust. Writing with passion for rural lives and the natural world, Laura Pritchett, who has been called “one of the most accomplished writers of the American West,” graces the land of desire in vivid prose, exploring the lengths these moving, deeply felt characters—some of whom we’ve met in Pritchett’s previous work—will traverse to protect their own.

The Blue Hour

When Vladimir Putin first took power in 1999, he was a little-known figure ruling a country that was reeling from a decade and a half of crisis. In the years since, he has reestablished Russia as a great power. How did he do it? What principles have guided Putin’s economic policies? What patterns can be discerned? In this new analysis of Putin’s Russia, Chris Miller examines its economic policy and the tools Russia’s elite have used to achieve its goals. Miller argues that despite Russia’s corruption, cronyism, and overdependence on oil as an economic driver, Putin’s economic strategy has been surprisingly successful. Explaining the economic policies that underwrote Putin’s two-decades-long rule, Miller shows how, at every juncture, Putinomics has served Putin’s needs by guaranteeing economic stability and supporting his accumulation of power. Even in the face of Western financial sanctions and low oil prices, Putin has never been more relevant on the world stage.

Putinomics

A brand-new anthology of stories inspired by the Arthur Conan Doyle canon In this follow-up to the acclaimed In the Company of Sherlock Holmes, expert Sherlockians Laurie King and Leslie Klinger put forth the question: What happens when great writers/creators who are not known as Sherlock Holmes devotees admit to being inspired by Conan Doyle stories? While some are highly regarded mystery writers, others are best known for their work in the fields of fantasy or science fiction. All of these talented authors, however, share a great admiration for Arthur Conan Doyle and his greatest creations, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. To the editors’ great delight, these stories go in many directions. Some explore the spirit of Holmes himself; others tell of detectives inspired by Holmes’ adventures or methods. A young boy becomes a detective; a young woman sharpens her investigative skills; an aging actress and a housemaid each find that they have unexpected talents. Other characters from the Holmes stories are explored, and even non-Holmesian tales by Conan Doyle are echoed. The variations are endless! Although not a formal collection of new Sherlock Holmes stories, some entries do fit that mold while others were inspired by the Conan Doyle canon. The results are breathtaking, for fans of Holmes and Watson as well as listeners new to Doyle’s writing.

The Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon Series

Echoes of Sherlock Holmes

In 1967, US Air Force fighter pilot James Shively was shot down over North Vietnam. After ejecting from his F-105 Thunderchief aircraft, he landed in a rice paddy and was captured by the North Vietnamese Army. For the next six years, Shively endured brutal treatment at the hands of the enemy in Hanoi prison camps. Back home, his beloved girlfriend Nancy eventually moved on and married another man. Bound in iron stocks at the Hanoi Hilton, unable to get home to his loved ones, Shively contemplated suicide. Yet somehow he found hope—and he became determined to help his fellow POWs survive. In a newspaper interview several years after his release, Shively said, “I had the opportunity to be captured, the opportunity to be interrogated, the opportunity to be tortured and the experience of answering questions under torture. It was an extremely humiliating experience. I felt sorry for myself. But I learned the hard way life isn’t fair. Life is only what you make of it.” Written by Shively’s stepdaughter Amy Hawk—whose mother Nancy ultimately reunited with and married Shively in a triumphant love story—and based on extensive audio recordings and Shively’s own journals, Six Years at the Hanoi Hilton is a haunting, riveting portrayal of life as an American prisoner of war trapped on the other side of the world.

Six Years in the Hanoi Hilton

From the first landings at Casablanca straight through to the crossing of the Elbe River and V-E Day, this book tells the gripping story of the European theater of operations battles of World War II that American soldiers, sailors, and airmen took part in and of the strategy behind them. The book’s core is its account of such famous and dramatic episodes as the landings in North Africa, Kasserine Pass, Salerno and Anzio, D-day, the liberation of Paris, the Battle of the Bulge, the crossing of the Rhine, and the race across Germany. It also tells the story of the conflicts between American and other Allied leaders over how to pursue the war, and of convoys, U-boat wolf packs, the aerial war over Germany, the bombing of Dresden, and the final surrender of the Nazis. MacDonald takes the listener back to the build-up to war, looking at the circumstances of the American decision during the early 1930s to concentrate, if war should come, on victory in Europe first; and he describes in detail the ways that America forged a disciplined fighting force when war broke out. MacDonald’s portrayal of major military figures—George S. Patton Jr., Mark W. Clark, J. Lawton Collins, among others—is both fair and penetrating, and he pays particular attention to other leaders whose accomplishments are not as well known. His sources include official US Army records and direct interviews with noncommissioned officers, privates, and top-level participants such as Generals Eisenhower and Bradley. His account also reflects intensive work with original documents and with many newly available sources, as well as his own experiences in the war as the commander of an infantry rifle company. The Mighty Endeavor is a thoroughly researched history.

The Mighty Endeavor

In The Last of All Possible Worlds, royalty, bankers, lovers, and wives intertwine to create a vivid portrait of Europe in the early 1900s. We meet wise and worldly Prince Sobieski, Vienna’s ambassador in London, his enchanting wife, her English lover, and her enigmatic lifelong companion, Josefa. When Sobieski’s illegitimate daughter makes a demand of her influential father, the unspoken rules of the family are challenged. Sobieski’s world is further upset when two powerful merchant bankers, the tragic McGregor Hinton and the ambitious Julius von Mosenthal, arrive in London—both with their own requirements of the prince. The Temptation to Do Good tells the story of Father Heinz Zimmerman, the well-regarded president of an American Catholic university. When he attempts to help a chemistry teacher who has been denied tenure he accidentally opens the door to the underlying tensions in the university.

The Last of All Possible Worlds and The Temptation to Do Good

Seventeen-year-old Silver King dreams of becoming a working cowboy. His mother, however, has pushed him to be a baseball player—and King certainly has the arm to be a star pitcher. When the National League forms a team in Kansas City in 1886, both mother and son get their wishes.

The Kansas City Cowboys

Collected here are ten Western short stories by Richard S. Wheeler, the award-winning author who makes storytelling look easy. In “Mugs Birdsong’s Crime Academy,” celebrated criminal Mugs Birdsong decides to found an academy that will instruct lawmen on the ways and means of lawlessness. “The Last Days of Dominic Prince” is the tragic tale of a cattle baron and his final conflict with the forces of political correctness. “Dead Weight” introduces us to a coffin maker who constructs a work of art. And in the title story, two young men in the gold fields of California spend one last night together as one of them confronts his own imminent death. This collection also includes “The Square Reporter,” “A Commercial Proposition,” “The Great Filibuster of 1975,” “The Tinhorn’s Lady,” “Hearts,” and “Looking for Love at a Romance Writers Convention.”

The Business of Dying

The gritty and inspiring story of the Japanese American “Go for Broke” regiment that rescued—against all odds—a trapped American battalion, and went on to become the most decorated unit of its size in World War II On October 24, 1944, more than two hundred American soldiers were surrounded by German infantry deep in the Vosges Mountains of eastern France. When their food, ammunition, and medical supplies ran out, the area’s Army headquarters turned to the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a segregated unit of Japanese American soldiers, to achieve what other units had failed to do: rescue the “lost battalion.” In this riveting narrative, New York Times bestselling historian Scott McGaugh tells the story of the famous soldiers who had volunteered for combat from within America’s internment camps. It is a story of a young generation’s fight against both the enemy and American prejudice—a story of heroism, sacrifice, and the best America has to offer.

Honor before Glory

After hitting a rich vein of gold on the back of Champion Mountain, Blondy Kitchin heads to the big city to have a good time, but there his luck runs out and he ends up spending two years in prison. The prison’s chaplain helps educate him, tries to smooth out his rough edges, and convinces him that the range is the place for Kitchin to make use of his brute strength and free spirit.

Sour Creek Valley

In the title story, Murdo Morgan left Paradise Valley sixteen years ago, after his brothers had been killed at the hand of the Turkey Track outfit. One year later, his father died a broken and defeated man. Broad Clancy, owner of the Turkey Track, has remained the controlling force in this area of high desert in Oregon, considering all the land to be open range, including the six-mile strip on both sides of the old wagon road which belongs to Cascade and Paradise Land Company. He fears that Morgan will return to exact his revenge for the death of his brothers. But Morgan is not driven by revenge but by a desire to carry out the dream of his father—to settle a thousand farming families in Paradise Valley. To that end, as the owner of the Cascade and Paradise Land Company, Morgan arrives with a plan for the sale of the land already under way and he is willing to risk his life and every cent of money he has to do it, despite the backlash he will receive from the Clancy dynasty. In “The Fence,” an Oregon sheriff must race against time to capture the men responsible for brutally murdering the father and grandfather of his former fiancée—before she becomes the next victim.

High Desert

The trouble began for Sheriff Claude Rainey when the Hightower Ranch cowboys discovered a mummified man and his horse in a desert canyon near Springville, Arizona—both shot in the head. Ordinarily that should have been the end of it. Few men riding the outlaw trail up out of Mexico make it through that godforsaken country. What troubled Rainey and the townsmen, however, was what Hightower foreman Al Trail had brought into town and given to the sheriff. Near the body, the cowboys had dug up a box that contained five bloodstained packets of hundred-dollar bills, amounting to $10,000. This only deepened the mystery. After all, who kills a man and leaves behind $10,000? The only clue to the identity of the dead man is the shriveled-up brand on the horse, which he sketches and sends to the registrar. The money is stowed in the only steel safe in Apache County while the sheriff and the townsmen wait to see who will ride in to Springville to claim it. It is Sheriff Rainey’s hope that the town can keep the money and build a proper schoolhouse. Then two men arrive within weeks of each other. The first, Fernando Bríon, informs Rainey that US Marshal Jonas Gantt and his horse have been found shot in the head on his land across the border in Mexico. He gives him Gantt’s personal effects. The circumstances are similar to those of the dead man and his horse found in the canyon. The second man is Deputy US Marshal Arch Clayton, who informs Rainey that the dead man was his partner back in Raton, New Mexico. Both men arouse Rainey’s suspicion and add to the mounting questions about the identity of the bushwhacking killer—foremost, whether he will show up in Springville, and what it is he’s really after.

Dead Man’s Cañon

It was spring on the Llano Estacado, the Staked Plains of Texas, the time for the cattle drives to push north to the rail heads in Kansas. The “Lost Cause” of the South was still fresh in the mind of Southerners, including fifty-five-year-old Ben Albright, a pioneer of the Texas cattle drives, who was well familiar with the trail and its dangers—he had successfully made five cattle drives from Texas to Kansas, but this spring will be his most difficult. With the death of Ewell Lansing, Northerners have taken over his trading post and ferry and refused provisions or passage to Texas cattle drives. When Albright finds a way around this, tensions reach the breaking point, and a Northerner and his horse are found dead. Will the Texans be able to prove their innocence before the Northerners catch up to them?

Reckoning at Lansing’s Ferry

After ten years of wandering, during which he has lived the life of a gambler and learned the ways of devious men, Tom Keene returns home, only to find his father alone and dying. Old John Keene’s sole legacy to his son is a Bible, so with his father’s passing, Tom Keene renounces his selfish, worthless past and sets out to preach to others that the greatest happiness is born of trust in one another. Tom gets a chance to demonstrate his new way of life when he rescues a little girl who has fallen into a well. He learns that the little girl comes from the country’s wealthiest family, now in financial straits. The family’s head, John Carver, is an improvident man who is at times cruel to his dependents, and Tom Keene’s good intentions are about to cost him more than he knows. Tom is jailed for a crime he did not commit, beaten and bullied until he changes again, this time into a cunning, calculating man whose sole purpose now is to be avenged for the wrongs done to him. Once released, he chases the trail of the desperado that double-crossed him.

Old Carver Ranch

A decade ago, former military counterintelligence officer Terry Henry joined his precocious young daughter, Kyria, on a trip to a nursing home in order to allow its residents to play with their family dog, a golden retriever named Riley. Terry was astounded by the transformations that unfolded before his eyes. Soon after, Terry and Kyria started their service dog organization, Paws4people, with the goal of pairing dogs with human beings in need of healing, including traumatized and wounded war veterans and children living with physical, emotional, and intellectual disabilities. In A Dog's Gift, award-winning journalist and author Bob Drury movingly captures the story of a year in the life of Paws4people and the broken bodies and souls the organization mends. The book follows the journey of pups bred by the organization from their loving, if rigorous, early training to an emotional event that Terry and Kyria have christened "the bump," where each individual service dog chooses its new owner through an almost mystical connection that ignites the healing process. Incorporating vivid storytelling, insights into canine wisdom, history, science, and moving tales of personal transformation, A Dog's Gift is a story of miracles bound to be embraced by not only the sixty million Americans who own dogs but by anyone with a full heart and a loving soul.

A Dog’s Gift

Hear firsthand from multitudes of people whose lives were influenced, inspired, and even transformed by the compassion, generosity, and leadership of Larry H. Miller. Larry H. Miller played by his own rules. Owner of an NBA franchise and founder of one of the country’s largest automotive retail groups, Larry was a college dropout who went on to buy or build nearly one hundred businesses. While his life as a successful businessman played out in public, his health challenges, as well as his quiet acts of service, were known to very few. Behind the Drive contains ninety-nine uplifting and untold stories from every aspect and era of Larry’s life. Contributors range from NBA legends to religious officials, business moguls to political leaders, employees to childhood friends, and colleagues to competitors. These stories of an ordinary-yet-extraordinary man will inspire listeners to find and live their own greatness by following Larry’s example of working hard at something he loved, applying his God-given talents in service to others, and allowing his life to be guided by something greater than himself. This book is a guide for anyone who wishes to find success in today’s busy world. The stories in Behind the Drive have the power to lift and inspire the next generation of leaders and entrepreneurs, as well as help everyone discover Larry’s formula for success: do work you love, get better at it every day, and serve others.

Larry H. Miller: Behind the Drive

Everywhere he goes, crowds gather to meet Buzz Aldrin. He’s a world-class hero, a larger-than-life figurehead, and the best known of a generation of astronauts whose achievements surged in just a few years from first man in space to first men on the moon. Now he pauses to reflect and share what he has learned, from the vantage point not only of outer space but also of time: still a nonstop traveler and impassioned advocate for space exploration, Aldrin will be eighty-six in 2016. No Dream Is Too High whittles down Buzz Aldrin’s event-filled life into a short list of the principles he values, each illustrated by fascinating anecdotes and memories, such as: Second comes right after first. NASA protocol should have placed Buzz Aldrin on the moon first, but rules changed just before the mission. Buzz discusses how he learned to be proud of being the second man on the moon.Look for opportunities, not obstacles. Buzz was rejected the first time he applied to be an astronaut. Failure is an opportunity to learn to do better.Always maintain your spirit of adventure. For his eightieth birthday, Buzz went diving in the Galapagos and hitched a ride on a whale shark. He stays fit, energetic, and fascinated with life.No Dream Is Too High is a beautiful memento, a thought-provoking set of ideas, and a new opportunity for Buzz Aldrin to connect with the masses of people who recognize his unique place in human history.

No Dream Is Too High

Ingenious parenting shortcuts every mom and dad should know Parenting can be hard work, and our lives continue to get busier and busier. Is it possible to lighten the load but still raise great kids? From his experiences as a dad and interacting with countless other parents, Jay Payleitner has gathered scores of secrets worth passing along—simple things moms and dads have learned over the years. Things as simple as passing along truths during TV commercials, or connecting with your children as you tuck them in at night, or learning how to laugh over spilled milk. Some of the ideas are old-school secrets passed from one generation to the next; others deal with issues that would have never crossed Grandma and Grandpa’s minds. All are easy to implement. This book is designed for a quick, breezy reading experience, letting parents pick and choose those ideas that will make their lives easier, their kids happier, and their futures even brighter.

Quick Tips for Busy Families

The Los Angeles Times affectionately referred to Freddy Powers as the “Ol’ Blue Eyes of Country Music,” and wrote that if you were to “ask country superstars Willie Nelson, George Jones, or Merle Haggard (they’ll) … tell you that he’s one of country music’s best-kept secrets.” The Texas Country Music Hall of Fame inductee has been to the top of the charts as both a producer for Willie Nelson’s Grammy-winning LP Over the Rainbow, and as a songwriter for many of country music legend Merle Haggard’s number one hits. Now, for the first time, Freddy recounts the entertaining and emotional stories behind his decades-long roller coaster ride through the music business; his voyage to the top of the charts, and his inspiring battle against Parkinson’s disease. Helping Freddy tell his story are exclusive interviews from fellow country music legends Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, John Rich, Tanya Tucker, The Voice finalist and Powers’ protégé Mary Sarah, along with a host of other Nashville luminaries.

The Spree of ’83

Compassionate Soldier illuminates some of the most fascinating and yet largely unknown stories of men and women whose humanity led them to perform courageous acts of mercy and compassion amid the chaos and carnage of war. Arranged by war from the American Revolution to the Iraq War and global in perspective, it features extraordinary stories of grace under fire from valiant soldiers and noncombatants who rose above the inhumanity of lethal conflict and chose compassion, even knowing their actions could put their lives and liberty at risk. Included in this collection are the stories of Richard Kirkland, a Confederate soldier during the Civil War who disobeyed orders and brought blankets and water to the wounded from both North and South during the Battle of Fredericksburg; Patrick Ferguson, a British soldier during the American Revolution who had the chance to kill George Washington, but refused to shoot a man in the back; and Oswald Böelcke, a German World War I flying ace who was one of the most influential tacticians of early air combat but was known for making sure the airmen he shot down made it to the ground alive. These inspirational stories illustrate that even in the midst of unspeakable horrors of war, acts of kindness, mercy, compassion, and humanity can prevail and, in doing so, expand our conventional thinking of honor and battlefield glory.

Compassionate Soldier

An inspired and original compilation for the 2016 election year, God Is in the House is a collection of essays by members of Congress who reflect on their deep faith and how it guides them as legislators. Compiled by Representative Virginia Foxx, who personally asked for contributions from congressional colleagues and coworkers, God Is in the House features essays from eighteen members of Congress from both political parties, representing eleven faiths and denominations.

God Is in the House

Edited by the bestselling author of The Ice Harvest, St. Louis Noir thickens the Midwest quotient for the Akashic Noir series. Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book. In the wake of Chicago Noir, Twin Cities Noir, and Kansas City Noir—all popular volumes in the Akashic Noir Series—comes the latest Midwest installment, St. Louis Noir. Masterfully curated by Scott Phillips, author of The Ice Harvest (adapted for film, starring John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton), this volume will chill the listener with heartland menace. Featuring brand new stories by Calvin Wilson, LaVelle Wilkins-Chinn, John Lutz, Paul D. Marks, Colleen J. McElroy, Jason Makansi, S. L. Coney, Michael Castro, Laura Benedict, Jedidiah Ayres, Umar Lee, Chris Barsanti, L. J. Smith, and Scott Phillips.

St. Louis Noir

A revealing and controversial account of the events surrounding Pearl Harbor Pulitzer Prize–winning author John Toland presents evidence that FDR and his top advisors knew about the planned Japanese attack but remained silent. Infamy reveals the conspiracy to cover up the facts and find scapegoats for the greatest disaster in United States military history.

Infamy

In Mississippi Noir, literary crime fiction master Tom Franklin has assembled a phenomenal short-story collection that highlights a mesmerizing and diverse set of styles and subject matter. Urban, suburban, and rural settings alike unveil new shades of darkness that fall upon Mississippi’s past and present. Mississippi Noir features brand-new stories by Ace Atkins, William Boyle, Megan Abbott, Jack Pendarvis, Dominiqua Dickey, Michael Kardos, Jamie Paige, Jimmy Cajoleas, Chris Offutt, Michael Farris Smith, Andrew Paul, Lee Durkee, Robert Busby, John M. Floyd, RaShell R. Smith-Spears, and Mary Miller.

Mississippi Noir

Prizewinning investigative journalist Art Levine offers a no-holds-barred and crucial call to action for America’s broken mental health system. The mental health system in America is hardly a front-burner issue, despite lip-service about reform after a tragic mass killing. Yet every American should care deeply about fixing a system a presidential commission reported was in “shambles.” By some measures, about 20 percent of Americans have some sort of mental health condition, including the most vulnerable among us―veterans, children, the elderly, prisoners, and the homeless. With Mental Health, Inc., award-winning investigative journalist Art Levine delivers a Shock Doctrine–style exposé of the failures of our out-of-control, profits-driven mental health system, with a special emphasis on the failures of the pharmaceuticals industry, including the treatment of children with antipsychotics and disastrous PTSD protocols for veterans. Levine provides narrative portraits of victims and people who won unexpected victories against their illnesses by getting smart, personalized help, as well as snapshots of corrupt Big Pharma executives and researchers who created fraudulent marketing schemes. Levine also tells the dramatic David vs. Goliath stories of a few brave reformers, including Harvard-trained psychiatrist and researcher Dr. Stefan Kruszewski, who has acted as a whistle-blower in numerous cases, leading to major federal and state settlements, as well as spotlighting pioneering clinicians challenging outmoded, drug-and-sedate practices that leave 90 percent of people with serious mental illness too disabled to work. By taking a comprehensive look at mental health abuses and dangerous, ineffective practices as well as pointing toward solutions for creating a system for effective, proven, and compassionate care, Art Levine’s essential Mental Health, Inc. is a call to action for politicians and citizens alike.

Mental Health, Inc.

Recalling his early life as a young cowboy, sixty-two-year-old Madison Carter remembers his first love: her name was Estrella O’Sullivan, and he met her the summer he turned sixteen back in 1873. The summer of 1873 marked Madison’s last drive up what is now called the Chisholm Trail. It was the first time he tasted oysters and the only time he pinned on a badge. It was the summer of longhorns, miserable heat, friendship and betrayal, and murder. In the end it was the summer the whole world came crumbling down on the United States, and Madison’s world crashed too. The summer of 1873 was the year Madison watched a bunch of men die. One of them was a man he killed, an encounter one never forgets.

Summer of the Star

Between 1819 and 1845, as veterans of the Revolutionary War were filing applications to receive pensions for their service, the government was surprised to learn that many of the soldiers were not men but boys, many of whom were under the age of sixteen and some even as young as nine. In Boy Soldiers of the American Revolution, Caroline Cox reconstructs the lives and stories of this young subset of early American soldiers, focusing on how these boys came to join the army and what they actually did in service. Giving us a rich and unique glimpse into colonial childhood, Cox traces the evolution of youth in American culture in the late eighteenth century, as the accepted age for children to participate meaningfully in society—not only in the military—was rising dramatically. Drawing creatively on sources such as diaries, letters, and memoirs, Caroline Cox offers a vivid account of what life was like for these boys both on and off the battlefield, telling the story of a generation of soldiers caught between old and new notions of boyhood.

Boy Soldiers of the American Revolution

While everyone knows of the Ice Bucket Challenge, the viral craze that swept the nation in summer 2014, too few know the truly inspirational story behind it. Pete Frates was a man at war with his own body, a man whose love for others was unshakable. He was a man who refused to fight alone and, in so doing, mobilized a global army to combat one of the most devastating diseases on earth: ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. When disease crippled Frates, the former Boston College baseball star turned tragedy into inspiration. Pete’s story is a testament to the power of love, the steadfastness of family, the generosity of strangers, and the compassion of crowds.

The Ice Bucket Challenge

Abraham Lincoln trusted and confided in his law partner William “Billy” Herndon, but his still-influential 1889 biography was censored by his collaborator and publisher. In Lincoln’s Billy, Tom LeClair imagines Herndon’s deathbed autobiography and the “real life” of his partner, revealing secrets about a randy and “rasslin’” Lincoln on his youthful trips to New Orleans, the hidden sources of his depression, and the untold cause of his hatred of slavery. Based on the latest biographical research, Lincoln’s Billy presents a vulgar, tale-telling Lincoln unknown to most Americans and a radical, truth-telling Herndon who was more advanced—and more contemporary—than the president on public education, women’s rights, and most importantly, slavery. The abolitionist and free-thinking Billy contends with his beloved partner for sixteen years, and after the assassination, he conflicts with Lincoln’s family, other biographers, Christian fundamentalists, corrupt Republican politicians, robber barons, and Victorian propriety as he struggles to write his unconventionally frank biography. Just as strong-willed are the novel’s women: the ambitious, emotionally volatile, and mentally ill Mary Todd Lincoln as well as Herndon’s two wives—Mary Maxcy, an active intellectual helpmeet despite being the mother of six, and Anna Miles, a Democrat, Presbyterian, and slavery sympathizer with whom Billy argues issues of the day. Like the story of Lincoln’s life and autobiographies by Franklin, Douglass, and Henry Adams, Lincoln’s Billy is a classic American tale of failure, resistance, persistence, and hard-won success. The author of five novels with contemporary settings, Tom LeClair pairs two vivid historical voices in Lincoln’s Billy—Abe’s “Kaintuck” vernacular and Billy’s lawyerly rhetoric—as the two attorneys duel over biographical truth and historical fiction.

Lincoln’s Billy

The day Jingo rode into Tower Creek, the town was busy celebrating its twentieth anniversary. The big event of the festival was a high-stakes poker game in Joe Slade’s saloon with Wally Rankin holding most of the chips. But it didn’t take long for Jingo to figure out why: Rankin was cheating. And it would only take a couple of well-placed bullets to reveal it to the others in the room.

Jingo

Johnny D. Boggs turns the battlefield itself into a character in this historical retelling of Custer’s Last Stand, when George Custer led most of his command to annihilation at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in southern Montana in 1876. More than forty first-person narratives are used—Indian and white, military and civilian, men and women—to paint a panorama of the battle itself. Boggs brings the events and personalities of the Battle of the Little Bighorn to life in a series of first-hand accounts.

Greasy Grass

Michael Tougias and Adam Gamble had good lives: married with two children each, nice homes in the suburbs, jobs that paid the bills, and frequent fishing trips out on the ocean. But those comfortable lives had cracks in them and soon they found themselves hit by a rogue wave of divorce, financial hardship, addiction, and career upheaval. What kept them going—and helped them navigate the rough waters of middle age—was fishing and friendship. Alone on the ocean they not only learned some of the successful secrets of striped bass fishing, but they were also brutally honest in their advice for each other. They began to see their time spent on Adam’s boat, the Scout, as a way to explore new ways of thinking and dreaming big. The two not only discovered ways forward but achieved goals far beyond what they thought possible.

The Power of Positive Fishing

Black Mike Sam Cassidy comes home to find himself in a series of tense confrontations. His father expects Sam to work for him at the local bank, and Sheriff Ben Faraday, for whom Sam worked the previous summer as deputy, is suffering from a terminal disease and wants Sam to become a deputy again. "Black Mike" Nickels wants to expand his use of public land and bring in more sheep, backed by guns. The Cattlemen's Association has vowed to stop Black Mike, but Sam's decision to become a deputy could make enemies of them both. Gun in His Hand Dane Coe is returning to Ogallala in Nebraska Territory at his father's request. He is met at the train depot by Ed Lanning, ramrod for Sam Drew's ranch, and Frank Ashton, a young gunfighter. Sam Drew will do whatever it takes to get the railroad to end its track on his own land rather than the land owned by Dane's father.

Black Mike

“Town of Twenty Triggers” opens this new trio of short novels by Les Savage Jr., marking their first appearance in book form. He was known only as the Joker, a portly, chuckling man with a bland smile, a poker face, and an amazing ability to make a deck of cards perform any trick he desired. His traveling companion is Emmet Pierce, a Texan fast with his gun. When this duo arrives in the small ranching town of Benton, the Joker is ready to take it over and claim it for his own. He begins by winning ownership of the Palace, the largest gambling hall in town. The twenty guns of the title describe the gunslingers the Joker hires to enforce his hold on the town. The only thing the Joker overlooks in his fiendish plans is that Emmet Pierce is a man with a moral conscience. The Pacific Railroad in “Where Hell’s Coyotes Howl” wants to build their spur line from Santa Fe to Tucson and they want the right of way through Apache Gap, the only passage through the Tanques Verdes. Otherwise they will have to lay about two hundred extra miles of track around the northwest corner of the Verdes. The strong man in Tucson is Face Card Farrow who has enough secret evidence against the wealthy and powerful to get his own way. When Face Card is murdered, it is discovered that most of his papers have gone missing. Amid all of this turmoil, matters are brought to the point of crisis when Laramie Drake, owner of the Double Deuces Ranch, saves teenage Midge Lawrence from a whipping by her court-appointed guardian, Eben Hazard. Although Laramie has no legal right to keep Midge with him, Midge wants to stay, a situation complicated by the fact that Midge becomes the focus of all the factions because she is believed to own the deed to Apache Gap. In “The Teton Bunch” it is all a matter of following the money—630 gold double eagles stolen in 1882. The daring robbery was perpetrated by the Teton Bunch, but afterward the gang was forced to break up and scatter. Gordie Hammer carried the money, but he didn’t have it any more when he was captured, tried, convicted, and sentenced. Now Hammer is a small rancher, but everyone, including Sheriff Victor Bondurant, believes Hammer has hidden the money and knows its whereabouts. Matters get worse when a number of gang members show up, hoping to force Hammer to give them their share.

The Teton Bunch

A rare and insightful account of the thousands of Union soldiers who escaped Confederate imprisonment and aided in the final dissolution of the Confederacy. During the winter of 1864, more than three thousand Federal prisoners of war escaped from Confederate prison camps into South Carolina and North Carolina, often with the aid of local slaves. Their flight created, in the words of contemporary observers, a “Yankee plague,” heralding a grim end to the Confederate cause. In this fascinating look at Union soldiers’ flights for freedom in the last months of the Civil War, Lorien Foote reveals new connections between the collapse of the Confederate prison system, the large-scale escape of Union soldiers, and the full unraveling of the Confederate States of America. By this point in the war, the Confederacy was reeling from prison overpopulation, a crumbling military, violence from internal enemies, and slavery’s breakdown. The fugitive Federals moving across the countryside in mass numbers, Foote argues, accelerated the collapse as slaves and deserters decided the presence of these men presented an opportune moment for escalated resistance. Blending rich analysis with an engaging narrative, Foote uses these ragged Union escapees as a lens with which to assess the dying Confederate States, providing a new window into the South’s ultimate defeat.

The Yankee Plague

Lorrimer Weldon has spent his life being a tumbleweed and rolling where the wind blows him. Up to Canada, down to Mexico, through deserts, forests, and mountains; anywhere fortune could be found. Those travels helped earn him a reputation as a gambler and a gunfighter—a reputation that frequently preceded him. When Weldon rode into San Trinidad, he found he immediately had two job offers: the outlaw Roger Cunningham wants Weldon to join his smuggling operation as a hired gun, and Dr. Henry Watts wants to hire Weldon’s gun as well, but as muscle to protect a patient dying of consumption, the beautiful Helen O’Mallock. Weldon finds Watts’ proposition far more attractive, so he accepts the offer, knowing that Cunningham will resent the decision.

The Brass Man

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