Hell With the Lid Blown Off


Book Description

In the summer of 1916, a big twister cuts a swath of destruction through Boynton, Oklahoma. Alafair Tucker's family and neighbors are not spared the ruin and grief spread by the storm. But no one will mourn for dead Jubal Beldon, who'd made it his business to know everyone's ugly secrets. It never mattered if Jubal's insinuations were true or not since in a small town like Boynton, rumor could be as ruinous as fact. Then Mr. Lee, the undertaker, discovers that Jubal was already dead when the tornado swept his body away. Had he died in an accident or had he been murdered by someone whose secret he had threatened to expose? Dozens of people would have been happy to do the deed, some of them members of Jubal's own family. As Sheriff Scott Tucker and his deputy Trenton Calder look into Jubal's demise, it begins to look like the prime suspect may be someone very dear to the widow Beckie MacKenzie, mentor of Alafair's daughter Ruth. Ruth fears that the secrets exposed by the investigation are going to cause more damage to Beckie's life than the tornado. Alafair, coping with injuries to her own, still has time for suspicions about how Jubal Beldon came to die. What if the truth of it hits very close to home?




The Return of the Raven Mocker


Book Description

"Vividly rendered and psychologically astute, this somewhat transparent puzzler provides an unusually immersive perspective on familiar historical territory." —Booklist World War I is raging in Europe, but as the deadly influenza pandemic of 1918 sweeps like a wildfire through Boynton, Oklahoma, Alafair Tucker is fighting her own war. Her daughter, Alice, and son-in-law, Walter Kelley, have both come down with the flu, and Alafair has moved into town to care for them after quarantining her young children at their sister's farm. Boynton as a whole isolates itself like an old English plague village, discouraging anyone from coming into town and the residents from traveling outside. A new doctor applies science to treating the stricken, but Alafair applies all she knows about hygiene, nutrition, and old and trusted country remedies. Unable to aid her sons and sons-in-law fighting overseas, this is danger she can combat. One autumn afternoon, screams coming from next door alert Alafair that Alice's neighbor, Nola Thomason, and her son Lewis have suddenly and unexpectedly succumbed. Yet there is something about the way the pair died that causes Alafair to suspect their deaths were due to poison rather than to influenza. The epidemic is so overwhelming that it is many days before the only doctor left in town can confirm Alafair's suspicions; neither Nola nor Lewis died of the flu. The only witness to their deaths, twelve-year-old Dorothy Thomason, a special friend of Alafair's daughter, Sophronia, is so traumatized that she is rendered mute. Were Nola and her son murdered, and if so, why? The usual motives for murder are greed, or jealousy, or hatred. Or could it be, as Alafair fears, that the Raven Mocker, the most dreaded of the Cherokee wizards or witches, the evil spirit who takes to the air in a fiery shape to rob the old, the sick, and the dying of their lives, is hunting victims and bringing misery to the innocent?







Harper's Magazine


Book Description

Important American periodical dating back to 1850.







The Hurricane Years


Book Description

An accomplished businessman faces the biggest challenge of his life when his race to the top is halted by a heart attack in this New York Times bestseller from the author of Executive Suite After a business trip to New York, advertising executive Judd Wilder returns to Pennsylvania, where he plans to drop off the annual stockholders’ report with his boss at Crouch Carpet Company. There’s no warning, no premonition of disaster, just a slight case of indigestion, which escalates into debilitating pain. Taken by ambulance to the local hospital, Judd at first refuses to believe that he has suffered a heart attack. Dr. Aaron Kharr specializes in cardiac behavior patterns. In Judd, he sees a businessman in his peak stress years whose long-building tensions have erupted in an emotional hurricane. Kharr’s goal is to heal both Judd’s mind and his body. As the doc studies the events in his patient’s past that have led to this point, Judd’s company undergoes a change of ownership and reorganization that mirrors his own recovery. With its multi-layered plot and teeming canvas of characters, including Judd’s wife, Kay; their son, Rolfe; and the fascinating Matthew Crouch, The Hurricane Years is a captivating novel about the rewards and pitfalls of corporate life.




Three Guns for Glory


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The Black Hearts Murder


Book Description

A city seethes with racial tension, and a political fixer tries to keep the peace In a forgotten neighborhood of downtown Banbury, Harlan James preaches the revolution, teaching young black men and women to stand up for their rights. According to the district attorney, he’s also been teaching them to make bombs. This is a lie, a political ploy designed to undermine the radical leader and maintain Banbury’s status quo. But no matter how tightly the authorities frame James, revolution is coming—and the streets will run with blood. As the city verges on chaos, the governor asks his top troubleshooter, Mike McCall, to keep an eye on James’s trial. When James skips bail, the city’s most violent citizens—black and white—threaten to riot. To save the city from destroying itself, McCall must find James and unravel the chilling mystery of the Black Hearts.




Butterflies


Book Description

One bleak December morning, two lovers say an unwilling goodbye, not knowing it would be forever.