The Witch of Delray

The Witch of Delray
Author: Karen Dybis
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 130
Release: 2017-10-30
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1439663173

An immigrant woman and her son are accused of murder and witchcraft in this powerful true crime story of corruption in 1930s Detroit. In 1931, the tensions of the Great Depression took hold of Detroit at every level—even spilling over into the investigation of a mysterious murder at the Delray boardinghouse. Amid accusations of witchcraft, Hungarian immigrant Rose Veres and her son Bill were convicted of the brutal killing and suspected in a dozen more. Their cries of innocence went unheeded—until one lawyer, determined to seek justice, took on the case. Following the twists and turns of this shocking story, The Witch of Delray explores the tumultuous 1930s in a city notorious for corruption and reveals the truth of Detroit’s own Hex Woman.

The Sadist, the Hitman and the Murder of Jane Bashara

The Sadist, the Hitman and the Murder of Jane Bashara
Author: George Hunter
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 391
Release: 2018-02-02
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1476633282

"Big Bob" Bashara put on a respectable face. To his friends in Detroit's affluent suburb of Grosse Pointe, he was a married father of two, Rotary Club President, church usher and soccer dad who organized charity events with his wife, Jane. To his "slaves," he was "Master Bob," a cocaine-snorting slumlord who operated a sex dungeon and had a submissive girlfriend to do his bidding--and he wanted more slaves to serve him. But Bashara knew he couldn't rule a household of concubines on his income alone. He eyed his wife's sizable retirement account and formulated a murderous plan. This meticulous account tells the complete story of the crime, the nationally watched investigation and trials, and the lives affected.

Riddle Island

Riddle Island
Author: Steve Hamilton
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Total Pages: 31
Release: 2020-02-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1094144487

On the afternoon of July 30, 1975, former Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa left the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox Restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, never to be seen again. Over two hundred FBI agents have been working the case in the forty-four years since that day—digging up end zones, driveways, hay fields, and horse farms—and yet Hoffa’s body has never been found. In this story by two-time Edgar Award–winning, New York Times bestselling author Steve Hamilton, Alex McKnight—the former Detroit cop and protagonist of eleven critically acclaimed novels that have sold over a million copies—is sitting at the rail in the Glasgow Inn when a local old-timer tells him an unusual story. It’s the kind of small-town mystery that won’t let Alex sleep at night, but when he goes hunting for answers, he stumbles upon the biggest surprise of his life. Forty-four years later, the disappearance of James Riddle Hoffa is still the most notorious open case in American crime history ... And Alex McKnight is about to solve it.

Notes from a Public Typewriter

Notes from a Public Typewriter
Author: Michael Gustafson
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Total Pages: 148
Release: 2018-03-27
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1538729105

A collection of confessional, hilarious, heartbreaking notes written anonymously on a public typewriter for fans of PostSecret and Other People's Love Letters. When Michael Gustafson and his wife Hilary opened Literati Bookstore in Ann Arbor, Michigan, they put out a typewriter for anyone to use. They had no idea what to expect. Would people ask metaphysical questions? Write mean things? Pour their souls onto the page? Yes, no, and did they ever. Every day, people of all ages sit down at the public typewriter. Children perch atop grandparents' knees, both sets of hands hovering above the metal keys: I LOVE YOU. Others walk in alone on Friday nights and confess their hopes: I will find someone someday. And some leave funny asides for the next person who sits down: I dislike people, misanthropes, irony, and ellipses ... and lists too. In Notes From the Public Typewriter Michael and designer Oliver Uberti have combined their favorite notes with essays and photos to create an ode to community and the written word that will surprise, delight, and inspire.

Joy in Tiger Town

Joy in Tiger Town
Author: Tom Gage
Publisher: Triumph Books
Total Pages: 223
Release: 2018-06-01
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1641250402

The 1968 World Series remains one of the most iconic in major league history. Featuring Bob Gibson in MVP form, Al Kaline, and Mickey Lolich, it was baseball at its best. Told with the vibrant first-hand perspective of Lolich himself and the expertise of award-winning Detroit journalist Tom Gage, this is the remarkable saga of that 1968 season which culminated in Tigers glory. Incorporating new reflections from players and personnel, Joy in Tigertown traces such achievements as Denny McClain's 31-win season as well as the remarkable slugging performances of Kaline, Norm Cash, Willie Horton, and Bill Freehan.

American Ruin

American Ruin
Author: Michael Matthews
Publisher:
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2019-06-20
Genre:
ISBN: 9781909269927

When Michael Matthews first visited Detroit, he was grimly fascinated by the place. The sheer scale of the crime and desolation was unlike anything he had seen before. He was hooked, and returned whenever he could. Over dozens of visits, he got to know the people - cops, reporters and gang members as well as ordinary Detroiters trying to live their lives in peace - and formed deep bonds with them, which led him into places and situations no writer has ever seen before. AMERICAN RUIN is the story of Michael's journey into the soul of this broken city, a shocking, violent and heart-breaking portrayal of a modern tragedy. Detroit was once the richest city in America, celebrated around the world for its prolific car production and flourishing music scene - the American Dream come true. Then came its fall. Detroit became the deadliest place in America, with more murders per capita than any other major city in the country. With drugs and guns rife on the streets and its administration riddled with corruption, the city was dying and anyone who could was getting out. AMERICAN RUIN is an explosive portrait of a city trying desperately to get back on its feet and the people prepared to give everything for their home.

Nine Lessons I Learned from My Father

Nine Lessons I Learned from My Father
Author: Murray Howe
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2017-10-31
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0735234183

A GLOBE AND MAIL BESTSELLER As a child, Murray Howe wanted to be like his father. He was an adult before he realized that didn't necessarily mean playing hockey. Gordie Howe may have been the greatest player in the history of hockey, but greatness was never defined by goals or assists in the Howe household. Greatness meant being the best person you could be, not the best player on the ice. Unlike his two brother, Murray Howe failed in his attempt to follow in his father's footsteps to become a professional athlete. Yet his failure brought him to the realization that his dream wasn't really to be a pro hockey player. His dream was to be his father. To be amazing at something, but humble and gracious. To be courageous, and stand up for the little guy. To be a hero. You don't need to be a hockey player to do that. What he learned was that it was a waste of time wishing you were like someone else. When Gordie Howe passed away in 2016, it was Murray who was asked to deliver the eulogy. Nine Lessons I Learned from My Father takes the reader through the hours Murray spent writing the words that would give shape to his father's leagcy--the hours immediately after his hero's death, as he gathers his thoughts and memories, and makes sense of what his remarkable father meant to him. The result is nine pieces of wisdom, built out of hundreds of stories, that show us the man behind the legend and give us a glimpse of what we can learn from this incredible life.

From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry: The Killing of Vincent Chin and the Trial that Galvanized the Asian American Movement

From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry: The Killing of Vincent Chin and the Trial that Galvanized the Asian American Movement
Author: Paula Yoo
Publisher: WW Norton
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2021-04-20
Genre: Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN: 1324002883

Winner of the 2021 Boston Globe Horn Book Award for Nonfiction Longlisted for the 2021 National Book Award for Young People's Literature Finalist for the 2022 YALSA Award for Excellence in Young Adult Nonfiction An NPR Best Book of 2021 A Washington Post Best Children's Book of 2021 A Time Young Adult Best Book of 2021 A Kirkus Reviews Best Children's Book of 2021 A Publishers Weekly Best Young Adult Book of 2021 A School Library Journal Best Book of 2021 A Horn Book Best Book of 2021 A compelling account of the killing of Vincent Chin, the verdicts that took the Asian American community to the streets in protest, and the groundbreaking civil rights trial that followed. America in 1982: Japanese car companies are on the rise and believed to be putting U.S. autoworkers out of their jobs. Anti–Asian American sentiment simmers, especially in Detroit. A bar fight turns fatal, leaving a Chinese American man, Vincent Chin, beaten to death at the hands of two white men, autoworker Ronald Ebens and his stepson, Michael Nitz. Paula Yoo has crafted a searing examination of the killing and the trial and verdicts that followed. When Ebens and Nitz pled guilty to manslaughter and received only a $3,000 fine and three years’ probation, the lenient sentence sparked outrage. The protests that followed led to a federal civil rights trial—the first involving a crime against an Asian American—and galvanized what came to be known as the Asian American movement. Extensively researched from court transcripts, contemporary news accounts, and in-person interviews with key participants, From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry is a suspenseful, nuanced, and authoritative portrait of a pivotal moment in civil rights history, and a man who became a symbol against hatred and racism.

Detroit

Detroit
Author: Charlie LeDuff
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2014-01-28
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0143124463

An explosive exposé of America’s lost prosperity by Pulitzer Prize­–winning journalist Charlie LeDuff “One cannot read Mr. LeDuff's amalgam of memoir and reportage and not be shaken by the cold eye he casts on hard truths . . . A little gonzo, a little gumshoe, some gawker, some good-Samaritan—it is hard to ignore reporting like Mr. LeDuff's.” —The Wall Street Journal “Pultizer-Prize-winning journalist LeDuff . . . writes with honesty and compassion about a city that’s destroying itself–and breaking his heart.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A book full of both literary grace and hard-won world-weariness.” —Kirkus Back in his broken hometown, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charlie LeDuff searches the ruins of Detroit for clues to his family’s troubled past. Having led us on the way up, Detroit now seems to be leading us on the way down. Once the richest city in America, Detroit is now the nation’s poorest. Once the vanguard of America’s machine age—mass-production, blue-collar jobs, and automobiles—Detroit is now America’s capital for unemployment, illiteracy, dropouts, and foreclosures. With the steel-eyed reportage that has become his trademark, and the righteous indignation only a native son possesses, LeDuff sets out to uncover what destroyed his city. He beats on the doors of union bosses and homeless squatters, powerful businessmen and struggling homeowners and the ordinary people holding the city together by sheer determination. Detroit: An American Autopsy is an unbelievable story of a hard town in a rough time filled with some of the strangest and strongest people our country has to offer.

Detroit

Detroit
Author: Scott Martelle
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2014-03-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1613730691

Detroit was established as a French settlement three-quarters of a century before the founding of this nation. A remote outpost built to protect trapping interests, it grew as agriculture expanded on the new frontier. Its industry leapt forward with the completion of the Erie Canal, which opened up the Great Lakes to the East Coast. Surrounded by untapped natural resources, Detroit turned iron into stoves and railcars, and eventually cars by the millions. This vibrant commercial hub attracted businessmen and labor organizers, European immigrants and African Americans from the rural South. At its heyday in the 1950s and ’60s, one in six American jobs were connected to the auto industry and Detroit. And then the bottom fell out. Detroit: A Biography takes a long, unflinching look at the evolution of one of America’s great cities, and one of the nation’s greatest urban failures. It seeks to explain how the city grew to become the heart of American industry and how its utter collapse resulted from a confluence of public policies, private industry decisions, and deep, thick seams of racism. This updated paperback edition includes recent developments under Michigan’s Emergency Manager law. And it raises the question: when we look at modern-day Detroit, are we looking at the ghost of America’s industrial past or its future? Scott Martelle is the author of The Fear Within and Blood Passion and is a professional journalist who has written for the Detroit News, the Los Angeles Times, the Rochester Times-Union, and more.