A sniper attack propels Latino cop Jimmy Vega on a twisting hunt for a predator who stalks the unforgiving landscape of immigrant America. Probing beyond the hardships of the journey north, Suzanne Chazin’s taut and timely novel explores the perils that await the hopeful once they reach their destination—and the price they must pay to survive . . . Jimmy Vega straddles two worlds – the hardscrabble Bronx where he grew up as the child of a Puerto Rican single mother, and the upscale, mostly white, suburban county where he now serves as a police detective. Yet despite his sense of never belonging, he’s a good and decent cop—even if the multi-million-dollar civil suit he’s facing says otherwise. His own troubles take a back seat when Vega learns that a court officer has just been shot and killed while transporting a controversial judge across the courthouse lot. Vega quickly surmises that the judge was the real target. She’s earned the ire of alt-right hate groups for going soft on undocumented defendants accused of petty crimes. The sole witness to the sniper’s identity is a Guatemalan girl traveling by bus from the border. And now, she’s vanished—melted into a community fearful of the police. Her days are numbered if Vega can’t get to her before the killer does. But as Vega and his girlfriend, Adele Figueroa, head of the local outreach center, probe deeper into the shadowy farm community where immigrants toil in horrifying conditions, they tap into a chilling discovery. One that offers Vega a stark choice: keep quiet and be lauded as a hero, knowing he let the real villain go. Or risk everything for an ugly truth no one wants him to find . . .
"A haunting account of one man's determination and the struggles of a people living in a deeply troubled country."-Booklist When William Powers went to Liberia as a fresh-faced aid worker in 1999, he was given the mandate to "fight poverty and save the rainforest." It wasn't long before Powers saw how many obstacles lay in the way, discovering first-hand how Liberia has become a "black hole in the international system"-poor, environmentally looted, scarred by violence, and barely governed. Blue Clay People is an absorbing blend of humor, compassion, and rigorous moral questioning, arguing convincingly that the fate of endangered places such as Liberia must matter to all of us.
Nobody has written more eloquently about the human side of high altitude mountaineering then Maria Coffey. In this new edition of Fragile Edge, she describes her love affair with elite British mountaineer Joe Tasker, who perished with his partner Peter Boardman while attempting Everest's then unclimbed Northeast Ridge in 1982. Coffey relives her experiences, first within the hard-partying mountaineering scene and then during her long journey to understanding and acceptance of the tragedy that cost her the man she loved. She gives us an insider's view of the life of a world-class mountaineer and recounts her deeply moving pilgrimage with Boardman's widow across Tibet; a journey which retraced Tasker and Boardman's steps to their abandoned Advance Base Camp at 21,000 feet on Everest.
People go missing every day. They walk out of their front doors and out of their lives into the silence of cold statistics. For those left behind it is the cruelest of long good-byes. Anna, a self-sufficient and reliable single mother, packs her bags one day for a short vacation to Italy. She leaves her beloved six-year-old daughter, Lily, at home in London with good friends. But when Anna doesn't return, everyone begins to make excuses until the likelihood that she might not come back becomes chillingly clear. And the people who thought they knew Anna best realize they don't know her at all. How could she leave her daughter? Why doesn't she call? Is she enjoying a romantic tryst with a secret lover? Or has she been abducted or even killed by a disturbed stranger? Did that person you loved so much and thought you knew so well did they simply choose to go and not come back? Or did someone do the choosing for them? Dunant, a masterly British suspense writer, skillfully interweaves parallel narratives that are stretched taut with tension even as they raise difficult questions about motherhood, friendship, and accountability. In this compelling hybrid of sophisticated crime writing and modern women's fiction, Dunant challenges and unnerves us as she redefines the boundaries of the psychological thriller. Missing rubs the soul raw. In place of answers all you have is your imagination.
A thrilling novel from New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger about the hunt for a missing girl and one community’s intricate yet fragile bonds. “[A] nail-biting nuanced whodunit.”—People Everybody knows everybody in The Hollows, a quaint, charming town outside of New York City. It’s a place where neighbors keep an eye on one another’s kids, where people say hello in the grocery store, and where high school cliques and antics are never quite forgotten. As a child, Maggie found living under the microscope of small-town life stifling. But as a wife and mother, she has happily returned to The Hollows’s insular embrace. As a psychologist, her knowledge of family histories provides powerful insights into her patients’ lives. So when the girlfriend of her teenage son, Rick, disappears, Maggie’s intuitive gift proves useful to the case—and also dangerous. Eerie parallels soon emerge between Charlene’s disappearance and the abduction of another local girl that shook the community years ago when Maggie was a teenager. The investigation has her husband, Jones, the lead detective on the case, acting strangely. Rick, already a brooding teenager, becomes even more withdrawn. In a town where the past is always present, nobody is above suspicion, not even a son in the eyes of his father. As she tries to reassure him that Rick embodies his father in all of the important ways, Maggie realizes this might be exactly what Jones fears most. Determined to uncover the truth, Maggie pursues her own leads into Charlene’s disappearance and exposes a long-buried town secret—one that could destroy everything she holds dear.
April 18, 1906: A massive earthquake rocks San Francisco just before daybreak, igniting a devouring inferno. Lives are lost, lives are shattered, but some rise from the ashes forever changed. Sophie Whalen is a young Irish immigrant so desperate to get out of a New York tenement that she answers a mail-order bride ad and agrees to marry a man she knows nothing about. San Francisco widower Martin Hocking proves to be as aloof as he is mesmerizingly handsome. Sophie quickly develops deep affection for Kat, Martin's silent five-year-old daughter, but Martin's odd behavior leaves her with the uneasy feeling that something about her newfound situation isn't right. Then one early-spring evening, a stranger at the door sets in motion a transforming chain of events. Sophie discovers hidden ties to two other women. The first, pretty and pregnant, is standing on her doorstep. The second is hundreds of miles away in the American Southwest, grieving the loss of everything she once loved. The fates of these three women intertwine on the eve of the devastating earthquake, thrusting them onto a perilous journey that will test their resiliency and resolve and, ultimately, their belief that love can overcome fear. From the acclaimed author of The Last Year of the War and As Bright as Heaven comes a gripping novel about the bonds of friendship and mother love, and the power of female solidarity.
A image-rich natural history book of the Tweed Coast for the layperson and high school student that includes geology, climate and oceanography, first people, human impacts, flora, fauna, nearshore and the ecological landscape
"Maria Coffey's tale is at once a deeply personal love story and a penetrating look into the world of professional climbers. Such clarity and honesty are seldom seen in mountain writing." - Greg Child, author of Postcards from the Ledge Critically acclaimed Fragile Edge won the coveted the International Literary Mountain prize for Maria Coffey's eloquently written story of how climbing tragedies affect those who are left behind. This is a powerful story describes how she survived the loss of her long-time partner, dealing with the sorrow and confusion, anger and healing. With openness and honesty, Coffey describes her love affair with elite British mountaineer Joe Tasker, who perished with his climbing partner Peter Boardman while attempting Everest's then-unclimbed Northeast Ridge in 1982. She relives her experiences, first within the hard-partying mountaineering scene and then during her long journey to understanding and acceptance of the tragedy that cost her the man she loved. She gives us an insider's view of the life of a world-class mountaineer and recounts her deeply moving pilgrimage with Boardman's widow across Tibet, a journey that retraced Tasker and Boardman's steps to their abandoned Advance Base Camp at 21,000 feet on Everest.