A Reckoning in the Back Country

A Reckoning in the Back Country
Author: Terry Shames
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2018-01-09
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 163388368X

Acting Police Chief Samuel Craddock investigates the murder of a visiting physician, whose mangled body is found in the woods. When Lewis Wilkins, a physician with a vacation home in Jarrett Creek, is attacked by vicious dogs, and several pet dogs in the area around Jarrett Creek disappear, Police Chief Samuel Craddock suspects that a dog fighting ring is operating in his territory. He has to tread carefully in his investigation, since lawmen who meddle in dog fighting put their lives at risk. The investigation is hampered because Wilkins is not a local. Craddock’s focus on the investigation is thrown off by the appearance of a new woman in his life, as well as his accidental acquisition of a puppy. Digging deeper, Craddock discovers that the public face Wilkins presented was at odds with his private actions. A terrible mistake led to his disgrace as a physician, and far from being a stranger, he has ongoing acquaintances with a number of county residents who play fast and loose with the law.

Dead Reckoning

Dead Reckoning
Author: Emma Walker
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2021-06-01
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1493052799

It's easier to stay alive if you know what's out there. That's the philosophy behind Dead Reckoning, an honest, unflinching, sometimes-thrilling collection of close calls and catastrophes in the Great Outdoors. Emma Walker's narrative nonfiction covers outdoor activities ranging from hiking to sea kayaking to backcountry skiing, all in accessible, easy-to-understand terms. At the end of each chapter, she distills lessons learned for staying safe in the outdoors––all with a relatable (and occasionally vulnerable) twist.

At the Edge of Empire

At the Edge of Empire
Author: Eric Hinderaker
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2003-05-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780801871375

During the 17th century, the Western border region of North America which existed just beyond the British imperial reach became an area of opportunity, intrigue and conflict for the diverse peoples - Europeans and Indians alike - who lived there. This book examines the complex society there.

A Great Reckoning

A Great Reckoning
Author: Louise Penny
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2016-08-30
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1250022126

Instant New York Times bestseller: #1 in Hardcover Fiction #1 in E-book Fiction #1 in Combined Print and E-book Fiction "Deep and grand and altogether extraordinary....Miraculous." —The Washington Post "Artful...Powerful...Magical." - The New York Times Book Review "Superb" - People “A Great Reckoning succeeds on every level." —St. Louis Post-Dispatch #1 New York Times bestselling author Louise Penny pulls back the layers to reveal a brilliant and emotionally powerful truth in her latest spellbinding novel. When an intricate old map is found stuffed into the walls of the bistro in Three Pines, it at first seems no more than a curiosity. But the closer the villagers look, the stranger it becomes. Given to Armand Gamache as a gift the first day of his new job, the map eventually leads him to shattering secrets. To an old friend and older adversary. It leads the former Chief of Homicide for the Sûreté du Québec to places even he is afraid to go. But must. And there he finds four young cadets in the Sûreté academy, and a dead professor. And, with the body, a copy of the old, odd map. Everywhere Gamache turns, he sees Amelia Choquet, one of the cadets. Tattooed and pierced. Guarded and angry. Amelia is more likely to be found on the other side of a police line-up. And yet she is in the academy. A protégée of the murdered professor. The focus of the investigation soon turns to Gamache himself and his mysterious relationship with Amelia, and his possible involvement in the crime. The frantic search for answers takes the investigators back to Three Pines and a stained glass window with its own horrific secrets. For both Amelia Choquet and Armand Gamache, the time has come for a great reckoning.

A Killing at Cotton Hill

A Killing at Cotton Hill
Author: Terry Shames
Publisher: Seventh Street Books
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2013-07-16
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1616147997

In this award-winning debut mystery novel, the chief of police of a small town is also an unreliable drunk. So when Dora Lee Parjeter is murdered, her old friend and former police chief Samuel Craddock steps in to investigate. He discovers that a lot of people may have had it in for Dora Lee—the conniving rascals on the farm next door, her estranged daughter, and her live-in grandson. And then there’s that stranger Dora Lee claimed was spying on her. As Craddock digs to find the identity of the killer, the human foibles of Jarrett Creek's residents—their pettiness and generosity, their secret vices and true virtues—are also revealed.

How the Word Is Passed

How the Word Is Passed
Author: Clint Smith
Publisher: Little, Brown
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2021-06-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0316492914

This “important and timely” (Drew Faust, Harvard Magazine) #1 New York Times bestseller examines the legacy of slavery in America—and how both history and memory continue to shape our everyday lives. Beginning in his hometown of New Orleans, Clint Smith leads the reader on an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks—those that are honest about the past and those that are not—that offer an intergenerational story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation's collective history, and ourselves. It is the story of the Monticello Plantation in Virginia, the estate where Thomas Jefferson wrote letters espousing the urgent need for liberty while enslaving more than four hundred people. It is the story of the Whitney Plantation, one of the only former plantations devoted to preserving the experience of the enslaved people whose lives and work sustained it. It is the story of Angola, a former plantation-turned-maximum-security prison in Louisiana that is filled with Black men who work across the 18,000-acre land for virtually no pay. And it is the story of Blandford Cemetery, the final resting place of tens of thousands of Confederate soldiers. A deeply researched and transporting exploration of the legacy of slavery and its imprint on centuries of American history, How the Word Is Passed illustrates how some of our country's most essential stories are hidden in plain view—whether in places we might drive by on our way to work, holidays such as Juneteenth, or entire neighborhoods like downtown Manhattan, where the brutal history of the trade in enslaved men, women, and children has been deeply imprinted. Informed by scholarship and brought to life by the story of people living today, Smith's debut work of nonfiction is a landmark of reflection and insight that offers a new understanding of the hopeful role that memory and history can play in making sense of our country and how it has come to be. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction Winner of the Stowe Prize Winner of 2022 Hillman Prize for Book Journalism A New York Times 10 Best Books of 2021

Always a Reckoning, and Other Poems

Always a Reckoning, and Other Poems
Author: Jimmy Carter
Publisher: Crown Archetype
Total Pages: 146
Release: 1995
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 0812924347

A collection of poetry by the former president shares Carter's private meditations and memories about his youth, family, friends, and politics. 75,000 first printing. $75,000 ad/promo. Tour.

Where Bigfoot Walks

Where Bigfoot Walks
Author: Robert Michael Pyle
Publisher: Catapult
Total Pages: 423
Release: 2017-08-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1619029650

One of America’s most esteemed natural history writers takes to the hills of the Pacific Northwest in search of Bigfoot—and finds the wildness within ourselves. “A unique book in the bigfoot literature . . . that understands what most lifetime bigfooters eventually come to know: that bigfooting is about the journey more than the destination.” —Cliff Barackman, field researcher and star of Animal Planet’s Finding Bigfoot Awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to investigate the legends of Sasquatch, Yale–trained ecologist Dr. Robert Pyle treks into the unprotected wilderness of the Dark Divide near Mount St. Helens, where he discovers both a giant fossil footprint and recent tracks. On the trail of what he thought was legend, he searches out Indians who tell him of an outcast tribe, the Seeahtiks, who had not fully evolved into humans. A handful of open–minded biologists and anthropologists counter the tabloids Pyle studies, while rogue Forest Service employees and loggers swear of a vast conspiracy to deep–six true stories of unknown, upright hominoid apes among us. He attends Sasquatch Daze, where he meets scientists, hunters, and others who have devoted their lives to the search, only to realize that “these guys don't want to find Bigfoot―they want to be Bigfoot!” Where Bigfoot Walks was the inspiration for the 2020 film The Dark Divide, starring David Cross and Debra Messing. Since the book’s original publication, Pyle’s fresh experiences and findings have been added to his original work through an updated chapter. With an evaluation of recent DNA evidence from Bigfoot hair and scat, the study of speech phonemes in the “Sierra Sounds” purported Bigfoot recordings, an examination of the impact of the wildly popular Animal Planet series Bigfoot Hunters, the reemergence of the famous Bob Gimlin into the Bigfoot community, and more, Walking With Bigfoot keeps every Bigfoot enthusiast’s mind wide open to one of the biggest questions in the land and brings Pyle’s work on the “legend” of Bigfoot into the new century.

Miracle Country

Miracle Country
Author: Kendra Atleework
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2021-06-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1643751417

WINNER OF THE SIGURD F. OLSON NATURE WRITING AWARD “Blending family memoir and environmental history, Kendra Atleework conveys a fundamental truth: the places in which we live, live on—sometimes painfully—in us. This is a powerful, beautiful, and urgently important book.” —Julie Schumacher, author of Dear Committee Members and The Shakespeare Requirement Kendra Atleework grew up in Swall Meadows, in the Owens Valley of the Eastern Sierra Nevada, where annual rainfall averages five inches and in drought years measures closer to zero. Her parents taught their children to thrive in this beautiful if harsh landscape prone to wildfires, blizzards, and gale-force winds. Above all, the Atleework children were raised on unconditional love and delight in the natural world. But when Kendra’s mother died when Kendra was just sixteen, her once-beloved desert world came to feel empty and hostile, as climate change, drought, and wildfires intensified. The Atleework family fell apart, even as her father tried to keep them together. Kendra escaped to Los Angeles, and then Minneapolis, land of tall trees, full lakes, water everywhere you look. But after years of avoiding her troubled hometown, she felt pulled back. Miracle Country is a moving and unforgettable memoir of flight and return, emptiness and bounty, the realities of a harsh and changing climate, and the true meaning of home. For readers of Cheryl Strayed, Terry Tempest Williams, and Rebecca Solnit, this is a breathtaking debut by a remarkable writer.

A Risky Undertaking for Loretta Singletary

A Risky Undertaking for Loretta Singletary
Author: Terry Shames
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2019-04-23
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1633884910

A FAVORITE SERIES CHARACTER FINDS HERSELF IN HARM'S WAY. After using an online dating site for senior citizens, town favorite Loretta Singletary--maker of cinnamon rolls and arbiter of town gossip--goes missing. Chief Samuel Craddock's old friend Loretta Singletary--a mainstay of the Jarrett Creek community--has undergone a transformation, with a new hairstyle and modern clothes. He thinks nothing of it until she disappears. Only then does he find out she has been meeting men through an online dating site for small-town participants. When a woman in the neighboring town of Bobtail turns up dead after meeting someone through the same dating site, Craddock becomes alarmed. Will Craddock be able to find Loretta before she suffers the same fate? Finding out what happened to Loretta forces him to investigate an online world he is unfamiliar with, and one which brings more than a few surprises.