Product Description: From the small towns of Appalachia they came, the young men who joined the fight for liberty in World War II. Now they are elderly, and some of them―like Harmon Strayer, father of prosecutor Bell Elkins's former law school classmate―suffer from Alzheimer's...read more

High summer in Acker's Gap, West Virginia―but no one's enjoying the rugged natural landscape. Not while a killer stalks the small town and its hard-luck inhabitants. County prosecutor Bell Elkins and Sheriff Nick Fogelsong are stymied by a murderer who seems to come and go like smoke on the mountain. At the same time, Bell must deal with the return from prison of her sister, Shirley―who, like Bell, carries the indelible scars of a savage past.In Summer of the Dead, the third Julia Keller mystery chronicling the journey of Bell Elkins and her return to her Appalachian hometown, we also meet Lindy Crabtree―a coal miner's daughter with dark secrets of her own, secrets that threaten to explode into even more violence.Acker's Gap is a place of loveliness and brutality, of isolation and fierce attachments―a place where the dead rub shoulders with the living, and demand their due.

Product Description: From the night-black depths of a coalmine to the sun-struck peaks of the Appalachian Mountains, from a riveting murder mystery to a poignant meditation on the meaning of love and family, the latest novel in the critically acclaimed series strikes out for new territory: the sorrow and outrage that spring from a real-life chapter in West Virginia history...read more

Product Description: "It is a story, told well and accurately, that summons up both tears and outrage."--Walter Dean MyersBACK HOME is the story of 13-year-old Rachel Ann "Brownie" Browning, whose family faces a tragic loss. Her father has just returned from the war in Iraq...read more

Product Description: “Julia Keller is that rare talent who combines gripping suspense, a fabulous sense of place, and nuanced characters you can’t wait to come back to.” ―Karin SlaughterPhone calls before dawn are never good news. And when you’re the county’s prosecuting attorney, calls from the sheriff are rarely good news, either...read more

Product Description: High summer in Acker's Gap, West Virginia―but no one's enjoying the rugged natural landscape. Not while a killer stalks the small town and its hard-luck inhabitants. County prosecutor Bell Elkins and Sheriff Nick Fogelsong are stymied by a murderer who seems to come and go like smoke on the mountain...read more

“Julia Keller is that rare talent who combines gripping suspense, a fabulous sense of place, and nuanced characters you can’t wait to come back to.” ―Karin SlaughterPhone calls before dawn are never good news. And when you’re the county’s prosecuting attorney, calls from the sheriff are rarely good news, either. So when Bell Elkins picks up the phone, she already knows she won’t like what she’s about to hear, but she’s still not prepared for this: sixteen-year-old Lucinda Trimble’s body has been found at the bottom of Bitter River. And Lucinda didn’t drown―she was dead before her body ever hit the water.With a case like that, Bell knows the coming weeks are going to be tough. But that’s not all Bell is coping with these days. Her daughter is now living with Bell’s ex-husband, hours away. Sheriff Nick Fogelsong, one of Bell’s closest friends, is behaving oddly. Furthermore, a face from her past has resurfaced for reasons Bell can’t quite figure. Searching for the truth, both behind Lucinda’s murder and behind her own complicated relationships, will lead Bell down a path that might put her very life at risk.In Bitter River, Pulitzer Prize winner Julia Keller once again weaves a compelling, haunting mystery set against the stark beauty and extreme poverty of a small West Virginia mountain town.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning Journalist -- When three elderly men are gunned down over coffee at a local diner, the town of Acker?s Gap is shaken. But a pattern of violence is taking shape that prosecutor Bell Elkins is becoming all too familiar with. Bell?s daughter, Carly, a witness to the crime and desperate to prove that she is an adult, decides to help her mother work the case. As Bell?s investigation unfolds, one thing is certain: the very idea of a simple way of life is coming to an end.

What’s happening in Acker’s Gap, West Virginia? Three elderly men are gunned down over their coffee at a local diner, and seemingly half the town is there to witness the act. Still, it happened so fast, and no one seems to have gotten a good look at the shooter. Was it random? Was it connected to the spate of drug violence plaguing poor areas of the country just like Acker’s Gap? Or were Dean Streeter, Shorty McClurg, and Lee Rader targeted somehow? One of the witnesses to the brutal incident was Carla Elkins, teenaged daughter of Bell Elkins, the prosecuting attorney for Raythune County, West Virginia. Carla was shocked and horrified by what she saw, but after a few days, she begins to recover enough to believe that she might be uniquely placed to help her mother do her job. After all, what better way to repair their fragile, damaged relationship? But could Carla also end up doing more harm than good - in fact, putting her own life in danger? In this powerful, intricate debut from Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Julia Keller, a mother and a daughter try to do right by a town and each other before it’s too late. “Shannon McManus does a terrific job narrating Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Julia Keller’s debut novel. …McManus handles the various ages, accents, and genders with controlled enthusiasm, delivering a gripping performance of Keller’s many shocking plot twists and breathtaking descriptions of Appalachia’s beauty. First-rate listening.” - Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

Product Description: Small Pastures is a biography about a mother who successfully raised an autistic child in the 1970s, when the medical world knew almost nothing about her son's condition.

Product Description: Soon after its debut at the time of the Civil War, the Gatling gun changed the nature of warfare and the course of world history. Discharging 200 shots per minute with alarming accuracy, the world's first machine gun became vitally important to protecting and expanding America's overseas interests...read more

Soon after its debut at the time of the Civil War, the Gatling gun changed the nature of warfare and the course of world history. Discharging 200 shots per minute with alarming accuracy, the world's first machine gun became vitally important to protecting and expanding America's overseas interests. Its inventor, Richard Gatling, was famous in his own time for creating and improving many industrial designs, from bicycles and steamship propellers to flush toilets, though it was the gun design that would make his name immortal. A man of great business and scientific acumen, Gating used all the resources of the new mass age to promote sales across America and around the world. Ironically, Gatling actually proposed his gun as a way of saving lives, thinking it would decrease the size of armies and, therefore, make it easier to supply soldiers and reduce malnutrition deaths. The scientists who unleashed America's atomic arsenal less than a century later would see it much the same way.

Product Description: Mortuary technician, Louise, blows the whistle on former lover, Eddie - a colourful and corrupt government minister. Then his body is wheeled into her morgue. She is torn between the new man in her life, the cool pathologist who performs the autopsy, and her obsession to bury all of Eddie, emotionally and physically ...read more