Race. Real estate. A long forgotten burial account. When several town officials and an endangered amphibian meet untimely ends at the hands of "America's purest form of democracy," four teens, two white, two Cape Verdean, confront prejudice, privilege, and each other in an effort to conceal evidence that could incriminate a friend.
Tracing the erosion of democratic norms in the US and the conditions that make it possible Jonathan Beecher Field tracks the permutations of the town hall meeting from its original context as a form of democratic community governance in New England into a format for presidential debates and a staple of corporate governance. In its contemporary iteration, the town hall meeting models the aesthetic of the former but replaces actual democratic deliberation with a spectacle that involves no immediate electoral stakes or functions as a glorified press conference. Urgently, Field notes that though this evolution might be apparent, evidence suggests many US citizens don’t care to differentiate. Forerunners: Ideas First Short books of thought-in-process scholarship, where intense analysis, questioning, and speculation take the lead
Race. Real estate. A long forgotten burial account. In this dark satire on small-town politics, a decades' old secret resurfaces when several town officials and an endangered black-bottomed newt meet untimely ends at the hands of America's purest form of democracy. Turning the mystery genre on its head, Murder at Town Meeting asks, through the template of a typical town meeting warrant, can we know for sure what we claim to know for certain? The who, the how, the how much, and the ladder truck ran down the police cruiser, why exactly?
A New York Times bestseller | Soon to be a major motion picture “Witty, endearing and greatly entertaining.” —Wall Street Journal “Don’t trust anyone, including the four septuagenarian sleuths in Osman’s own laugh-out-loud whodunit.” —Parade Four septuagenarians with a few tricks up their sleeves A female cop with her first big case A brutal murder Welcome to... THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together they call themselves the Thursday Murder Club. When a local developer is found dead with a mysterious photograph left next to the body, the Thursday Murder Club suddenly find themselves in the middle of their first live case. As the bodies begin to pile up, can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer, before it's too late?
An eye witness to a murder, a crush-worthy cop who needs her help, and a cat with a hunch. What could possibly go wrong? Mallory Beck isn’t in the habit of involving herself in local politics, but when she supports a new friend at a Ministry of Education meeting and the main speaker is found dead on the steps of the Town Hall, she finds herself smack-dab in the middle of another murder investigation. Her cat, Hunch, who loves a good mystery, is thrilled, and as usual, helps her discover the first clue. Mallory’s clever friend and former pre-teen crush, Alex, is on the case. He was recently promoted to detective within the Honeysuckle Grove Police Department, but when he’s paired with a lackadaisical superior who continually botches investigations, Mallory and her famously delicious baking comes to the rescue. After all, the easiest way to a suspect’s truth might just be through their stomach.
Hailed as "toweringly important" (Baltimore Sun), "a work of scrupulous and significant reportage" (E. L. Doctorow), and "an unforgettable historical drama" (Chicago Sun-Times), Big Trouble brings to life the astonishing case that ultimately engaged President Theodore Roosevelt, Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, and the politics and passions of an entire nation at century's turn. After Idaho's former governor is blown up by a bomb at his garden gate at Christmastime 1905, America's most celebrated detective, Pinkerton James McParland, takes over the investigation. His daringly executed plan to kidnap the radical union leader "Big Bill" Haywood from Colorado to stand trial in Idaho sets the stage for a memorable courtroom confrontation between the flamboyant prosecutor, progressive senator William Borah, and the young defender of the dispossessed, Clarence Darrow. Big Trouble captures the tumultuous first decade of the twentieth century, when capital and labor, particularly in the raw, acquisitive West, were pitted against each other in something close to class war. Lukas paints a vivid portrait of a time and place in which actress Ethel Barrymore, baseball phenom Walter Johnson, and editor William Allen White jostled with railroad magnate E. H. Harriman, socialist Eugene V. Debs, gunslinger Charlie Siringo, and Operative 21, the intrepid Pinkerton agent who infiltrated Darrow's defense team. This is a grand narrative of the United States as it charged, full of hope and trepidation, into the twentieth century.
'Superb - one of the best real-life copy books ever written.' Lee Child In a true crime cross between James Ellroy and David Simon's The Wire, A Good Month for Murder follows twelve homicides, three police-involved shootings and the furious hunt for an especially brutal killer in Washington D.C. After gaining unparalleled access to the homicide unit in Prince George's County, which borders the nation's capital, bestselling author Del Quentin Wilber begins shadowing the talented, often quirky detectives who get the call when a body falls. After a quiet couple of months, all hell breaks loose: suddenly every detective in the squad is scrambling to solve one shooting and stabbing after another. Meanwhile, the entire unit is obsessed with a stone-cold 'red ball', a high-profile case involving a seventeen-year-old honour student attacked by a gunman who kicked down the door to her house and shot her in her bed. This is the inside story of how a team of detectives carry out their almost impossible job. Murder is the police investigator's ultimate crucible: to solve a killing, a detective must speak for the dead. A Good Month for Murder is a compelling true crime account which shows what it takes to succeed when the stakes couldn't possibly be higher.
Desperate Housewives meets Murder, She Wrote, in Lee Hollis’s new mystery series, where a housewife and a female private eye solve murders together in their small Maine town! Someone is trying to turn Portland High into a school for scandal with a gossipy website called Dirty Laundry. The latest target of ruinous rumors is newly elected PTA president Sandra Wallage. After a heated meeting with outraged parents, Sandra runs into fellow school mom and private investigator Maya Kendrick, who's discovered the person behind the website. But when the women storm into the venomous gossip columnist’s office they find a lifeless body—along with a confession. Although the police rule the death a suicide, Maya suspects an injured party hung the Dirty Laundry creator out to dry. Maya already has a PI partner—but she's pregnant, and sonograms and stakeouts tend to conflict. So when Sandra volunteers for a crash course in sleuthing, Maya accepts the help. But as these unlikely partners study the clues, a killer plans to teach them a lesson . . .
A new series debut that finds a talented hotel manager tasked with saving her bankrupt hometown, only to be declared a chief suspect in the murder of her high-school nemesis.
Alma is a private detective in a near-future England, a country desperately trying to tempt people away from the delights of Shine, the immersive successor to the internet. But most people are happy to spend their lives plugged in, and the country is decaying. Alma's partner is ill, and has to be treated without fail every 4 hours, a task that only Alma can do. If she misses the 5 minute window her lover will die. She is one of the few not to access the Shine. So when Alma is called to an automated car factory to be shown an impossible death and finds herself caught up in a political coup, she knows that getting too deep may leave her unable to get home. What follows is a fast-paced Hitchcockian thriller as Alma evades arrest, digs into the conspiracy, and tries to work out how on earth a dead body appeared in the boot of a freshly-made car in a fully-automated factory.