The blues were born out of pride, anger, and need. Murder comes from those same dark places. One of Memphis' most seductive and notorious socialites has disappeared. She's either off on another of her drunken escapades or the disappearance is something much more frightening. What begins as an ordinary day's work for Detective Billy Able of the Memphis P.D. quickly grows into a high-level spider's web of tragedy, mystery, suspicion, passion, and sordid secrets--including a few of Billy's own. Along with Mercy Snow, the estranged sister of the missing socialite, Billy follows a twisted path of human frailty and corruption to disturbing truths that undermine everything he thought he knew about himself and the people he loves.
Detective Billy Able must find one of Memphis' most seductive and notorious socialites. With the help of Mercy Snow, the estranges sister of the missing socialite, Billy follows a twisted trail of human frailty and corruption to disturbing truths.
The blues were born out of pride, anger and need. Murder comes from those same dark places. One of Memphis' most seductive and notorious socialites has disappeared. She's either off on another of her drunken escapades or the disappearance is something much more frightening. What begins as an ordinary day's work for Detective Billy Able of the Memphis P.D. quickly grows into a high-level spider's web of tragedy, mystery, suspicion, passion, and sordid secrets-including a few of Billy's own. Along with Mercy Snow, the estranged sister of the missing socialite, Billy follows a twisted path of human frailty and corruption to disturbing truths that undermine everything he thought he knew about himself and the people he loves.
James T. Scott's 1923 lynching in the college town of Columbia, Missouri, was precipitated by a case of mistaken identity. Falsely accused of rape, the World War I veteran was dragged from jail by a mob and hanged from a bridge before 1000 onlookers. Patricia L. Roberts lived most of her life unaware that her aunt was the girl who erroneously accused Scott, only learning of it from a 2003 account in the University of Missouri's school newspaper. Drawing on archival research, she tells Scott's full story for the first time in the context of the racism of the Jim Crow Midwest.
Police discover a headless corpse in glamorous Palm Beach and Louis Kincaid must find the killer to save an innocent man. When the headless corpse of a young man is discovered in glamorous Palm Beach, Louis sets his sights on his most likely suspect—a prominent female U.S. Senator with a history of scandal and a known penchant for sadistic and dangerous sex. Then a second headless body turns up and the trail runs cold, allowing the real killer to slip in dangerously close, intent on making Louis’s best friend the next victim. Beautifully written yet packed with raw power, The Little Death is a suspenseful thriller of the highest order and will satisfy fans of writers such as Ed McBain, James Patterson, and Michael Connolly.
A classic tale by Newbery Medalist Kate DiCamillo, America's beloved storyteller. One summer’s day, ten-year-old India Opal Buloni goes down to the local supermarket for some groceries – and comes home with a dog. But Winn-Dixie is no ordinary dog. It’s because of Winn-Dixie that Opal begins to make friends. And it’s because of Winn-Dixie that she finally dares to ask her father about her mother, who left when Opal was three. In fact, as Opal admits, just about everything that happens that summer is because of Winn-Dixie. Featuring a new cover illustration by E. B. Lewis.
Rock & roll has transformed American culture more profoundly than any other art form. During the 1960s, it defined a generation of young people as political and social idealists, helped end the Vietnam War, and ushered in the sexual revolution. In Dixie Lullaby, veteran music journalist Mark Kemp shows that rock also renewed the identity of a generation of white southerners who came of age in the decade after segregation -- the heyday of disco, Jimmy Carter, and Saturday Night Live. Growing up in North Carolina in the 1970s, Kemp experienced pain, confusion, and shame as a result of the South's residual civil rights battles. His elementary school was integrated in 1968, the year Kemp reached third grade; his aunts, uncles, and grandparents held outdated racist views that were typical of the time; his parents, however, believed blacks should be extended the same treatment as whites, but also counseled their children to respect their elder relatives. "I loved the land that surrounded me but hated the history that haunted that land," Kemp writes. When rock music, specifically southern rock, entered his life, he began to see a new way to identify himself, beyond the legacy of racism and stereotypes of southern small-mindedness that had marked his early childhood. Well into adulthood Kemp struggled with the self-loathing familiar to many white southerners. But the seeds of forgiveness were planted in adolescence when he first heard Duane Allman and Ronnie Van Zant pour their feelings into their songs. In the tradition of music historians such as Nick Tosches and Peter Guralnick, Kemp masterfully blends into his narrative the stories of southern rock bands --from heavy hitters such as the Allman Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and R.E.M. to influential but less-known groups such as Drive-By Truckers -- as well as the personal experiences of their fans. In dozens of interviews, he charts the course of southern rock & roll. Before civil rights, the popular music of the South was a small, often racially integrated world, but after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, black musicians struck out on their own. Their white counterparts were left to their own devices, and thus southern rock was born: a mix of popular southern styles that arose when predominantly white rockers combined rural folk, country, and rockabilly with the blues and jazz of African-American culture. This down-home, flannel-wearing, ass-kicking brand of rock took the nation by storm in the 1970s. The music gave southern kids who emulated these musicians a newfound voice. Kemp and his peers now had something they could be proud of: southern rock united them and gave them a new identity that went beyond outside perceptions of the South as one big racist backwater. Kemp offers a lyrical, thought-provoking, searingly intimate, and utterly original journey through the South of the 1960s, '70s, '80s, and '90s, viewed through the prism of rock & roll. With brilliant insight, he reveals the curative and unifying impact of rock on southerners who came of age under its influence in the chaotic years following desegregation. Dixie Lullaby fairly resonates with redemption.
Edgar Nominee and Bestselling author Lisa Turner’s hard-boiled Detective Billy Able returns in this dark southern mystery about the murder of a dazzling Memphis socialite—and the scandals revealed in the wake of her death. The heart can be an assassin. Homicide Detective Billy Able knows that from experience. Fresh from solving Memphis’s most sensational murder case, Billy and his ambitious new partner, Frankie Malone, are called to a bizarre crime scene on the outskirts of town. A high-society attorney has been murdered while dressed in a wedding gown. Billy is shocked to discover he has a very personal connection to the victim. When the attorney’s death exposes illegal practices at her family’s prestigious law firm, the scandal is enough to rock the southern city’s social world. In a tale about the remnants of Old South aristocracy and entitlement twisted by greed and vengeance, Billy must confront the secrets of his own past to have any chance at solving the murder of the girl he once knew. But as he seeks the truth, he’s drawn closer to an embittered killer bent on revenge—and eliminating the threat Billy poses.
Liz had no idea that today would be the last day of her life. It felt like any other Saturday. She wore the same jeans she wore every weekend, wore the same color lipstick, and sat in the same Honda she'd been driving for six years.At twenty-nine, Liz Lindsay is in her prime, juggling her duties as a wife and a mother to two lively children. But when her car is struck head-on by a semi, her family has every right to believe Liz is gone forever. What they don't know is that only a few miles away, Liz has just woken up in the body of an eleven-year-old girl, Kate - the survivor of the world's first-ever brain transplant. Horrified by the reality of her new life, Liz struggles with the secret of her memories and her enduring love for the family she left behind.This stunning debut novel from Dixie Wilks-Owens is filled with equal parts heartache and hope; tragedy and redemption. Guaranteed to keep you engrossed and guessing until the very last page, Becoming Kate is an enthralling exploration of identity, family, and what it really means to be alive.
