Accidental Heroes

Accidental Heroes
Author: Danielle Steel
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2018-03-20
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 110188410X

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A decorated former Air Force pilot. A pregnant flight attendant. A dedicated TSA agent. The fates of these three, and many others, converge in Danielle Steel’s gripping new novel—a heart-stopping thriller that engages ordinary men and women in the fight of their lives during a flight from New York to San Francisco. On a beautiful May morning at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport, two planes have just departed for San Francisco—one a 757, another a smaller Airbus A321. At a security checkpoint, TSA agent Bernice Adams finds a postcard of the Golden Gate Bridge bearing an ambiguous—perhaps ominous—message. Her supervisor dismisses her concerns, but Bernice calls security and soon Ben Waterman arrives. A senior Homeland Security agent, still grappling with guilt after a disastrous operation in which hostages were killed, Ben too becomes suspicious. Who left the postcard behind, which flight is that person on, and what exactly does the message mean? As Ben scans the passenger manifests, his focus turns to the A321, with Helen Smith as its senior pilot. Helen’s military service and her tenure with the airline have been exemplary. But her husband’s savage death in Iraq was more than anyone should bear, leaving her widowed with three children. A major film star is on board. So is an off-duty pilot who has just lost his forty-year career. So is a distraught father, traveling with the baby son he has abducted from his estranged wife. Sifting through data and relying on instinct, Ben becomes convinced that someone on Helen’s plane is planning something terrible. And he’s right. Passengers, crew, and experts on the ground become heroes out of necessity to try to avert tragedy at the eleventh hour. In her stunning novel, Danielle Steel combines intense action with stories of emotionally rich, intertwined lives. As the jet bears down on its destination of San Francisco, strangers are united, desperate choices are made, and futures will be changed forever by a handful of accidental heroes.

Black Death at the Golden Gate: The Race to Save America from the Bubonic Plague

Black Death at the Golden Gate: The Race to Save America from the Bubonic Plague
Author: David K. Randall
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2019-05-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 0393609464

“A mash-up of Erik Larson and Richard Preston.” —Tina Jordan, New York Times Book Review podcast On March 6, 1900, the bubonic plague took its first victim on American soil: Chinese immigrant Wong Chut King. Empowered by racist pseudoscience, officials rushed to quarantine Chinatown—but when corrupt politicians mounted a cover-up to obscure the threat, it fell to federal health officer Rupert Blue to save San Francisco, and the nation, from a gruesome fate. Black Death at the Golden Gate is a spine-chilling saga of virulent racism, human folly, and the ultimate triumph of scientific progress.

Building the Golden Gate Bridge

Building the Golden Gate Bridge
Author: Harvey Schwartz
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2015-09-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0295806206

Silver Award Winner, 2016 Nautilus Book Award in Young Adult (YA) Non-Fiction Moving beyond the familiar accounts of politics and the achievements of celebrity engineers and designers, Building the Golden Gate Bridge is the first book to primarily feature the voices of the workers themselves. This is the story of survivors who vividly recall the hardships, hazards, and victories of constructing the landmark span during the Great Depression. Labor historian Harvey Schwartz has compiled oral histories of nine workers who helped build the celebrated bridge. Their powerful recollections chronicle the technical details of construction, the grueling physical conditions they endured, the small pleasures they enjoyed, and the gruesome accidents some workers suffered. The result is an evocation of working-class life and culture in a bygone era. Most of the bridge builders were men of European descent, many of them the sons of immigrants. Schwartz also interviewed women: two nurses who cared for the injured and tolerated their antics, the wife of one 1930s builder, and an African American ironworker who toiled on the bridge in later years. These powerful stories are accompanied by stunning photographs of the bridge under construction. An homage to both the American worker and the quintessential San Francisco landmark, Building the Golden Gate Bridge expands our understanding of Depression-era labor and California history and makes a unique contribution to the literature of this iconic span.

Paying the Toll

Paying the Toll
Author: Louise Dyble
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2009
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780812241471

Drawing on previously unavailable archives, Paying the Toll describes the high-stakes struggles for control of the Golden Gate Bridge, and offers a rare inside look at the powerful and secretive agency that built a regional transportation empire with its toll revenue.

Golden Gate

Golden Gate
Author: James Ponti
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2021-03-09
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1534414967

In this second installment in the New York Times bestselling series from Edgar Award winner James Ponti, the young group of spies returns for another international adventure perfect for fans of Spy School and Mrs. Smith’s Spy School for Girls. After thwarting a notorious villain at an eco-summit in Paris, the City Spies are gearing up for their next mission. Operating out of a base in Scotland, this secret team of young agents working for the British Secret Intelligence Service’s MI6 division have honed their unique skills, such as sleight of hand, breaking and entering, observation, and explosives. All of these allow them to go places in the world of espionage where adults can’t. Fourteen-year-old Sydney is a surfer and a rebel from Bondi Beach, Australia. She’s also a field ops specialist for the City Spies. Sydney is excited to learn that she’ll be going undercover on the marine research vessel the Sylvia Earle. But things don’t go exactly as planned, and while Sydney does find herself in the spotlight, it’s not in the way she was hoping. Meanwhile, there’s been some new intel regarding a potential mole within the organization, offering the spies a lead that takes them to San Francisco, California. But as they investigate a spy who died at the Botanical Gardens, they discover that they are also being investigated. And soon, they’re caught up in an exciting adventure filled with rogue missions and double agents! This mission is hot! The City Spies are a go!

Building the Golden Gate Bridge

Building the Golden Gate Bridge
Author: B. A. Hoena
Publisher: Capstone Classroom
Total Pages: 113
Release: 2014-07-01
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1491404035

"Explores various perspectives on the process of building the Golden Gate Bridge. The reader's choices reveal the historical details"--

Murder by the Bay

Murder by the Bay
Author: Charles F. Adams
Publisher: Quill Driver Books
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2005
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781884995460

Murder has a long and distinguished history in San Francisco. The city and its Bay Area can stand proudly with Paris, London, and New York in the splendour of its misdeeds -- murders that have suspense, horror, audacity, and flair. The homicides chronicled in Murder by the Bay have been selected because a convergence of personality, circumstance, character, and geography makes them peculiarly San Franciscan. Each of these crimes illustrates an historic importance, each has impacted its times -- either in the course or application of the law or in the manner in which the affair revealed a shortcoming in society. They range from the Montgomery Street killing of James King of William, editor of the Daily Evening Bulletin, in 1856 to the sensational trial of early movie comedian Fatty Arbuckle who was accused of killing a showgirl at a party in the St. Francis Hotel to the shocking "City Hall Murders" in which former city supervisor Dan White killed Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. Most were solved, some were not. They are murders that fascinated the city and frequently the country, sometimes for weeks, often for years and even decades.

San Francisco's Golden Gate Park

San Francisco's Golden Gate Park
Author: Chris Pollock
Publisher: Graphic Arts Center Publishing Co.
Total Pages: 130
Release: 2001
Genre: Golden Gate Park (San Francisco, Calif.)
ISBN: 1558685456

This gorgeous book captures the wonders of this park by the bay. Filled with color photos and historical documents documenting the park's illustrious and colorful past.

Through the Golden Gate - San Francisco 1769 - 1937

Through the Golden Gate - San Francisco 1769 - 1937
Author: Catherine Coffin Phillips
Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
Total Pages: 179
Release: 2017
Genre: History
ISBN: 3849650685

California's name was associated with stories of romance and adventure as far back in history as the year 1510. Among those who heard and half believed the romantic tale was Hernando Cortes. By the year 1521 he had conquered the Aztecs of Mexico and forced them to become the subjects of Spain. He was now looking over the western seas for new worlds to conquer. He firmly believed that somewhere in the direction ascribed to California there was a rich and prosperous country. But there were many more who sailed through the Golden Gate in the early years. This book gives an account of their fate and success.