Arcadia Public Library

"A warm summer Saturday. An amusement park. David Harwood is glad to be spending some quality time with his wife, Jan, and their four-year-old son. But what begins as a pleasant family outing turns into a nightmare after an inexplicable disappearance. A frantic search only leads to an even more shocking and harrowing turn of events."--Page 2 of cover.

Returning to her tiny hometown of Dacus, South Carolina, attorney Avery Andrews suddenly finds herself caught up in the battle between a real-estate developer and environmentalists, a battle that is complicated by a brutal murder.

"Authentico Foods Inc. has been a part of Detroit's Mexican town for over thirty years, grown from a home kitchen business to a city-block-long facility that supplies Mexican tortillas to restaurants throughout the Midwest. Detroit ex-cop and Mexican town native August Snow has been invited for a business meeting at Authentico Foods. Its owner, Ronaldo Ochoa, is dying, and is being blackmailed into selling the company to an anonymous entity. Worried...

"A fly-on-the-wall account of the ferocious ambition, greed, and financial one-upmanship behind the most expensive real estate in the world: the new Manhattan megatowers known as Billionaires' Row-from a staff reporter at The Wall Street Journal. To look south from Central Park these days is to gaze upon a physical manifestation of tens of billions of dollars in global wealth: a series of soaring spires dotting the skyline from Park Avenue to Broadway....

"Serge A. Storms and his permanently baked sidekick, Coleman, have decided to pump the brakes and live on island time. After years of manic road tripping across their beloved Sunshine State, the irrepressible anti-heroes drop anchor in the Florida Keys. They settle down in Pelican Bay, a thriving condo complex with scenic views and friendly neighbors. But the community is at war with investors who are buying up units and leasing them to young vacationers...

The 1920s in Florida was a time of incredible excess, immense wealth, and precipitous collapse. The new cities that rose rapidly from the teeming wetlands spawned a new subdivision civilization-- and an egregious large-scale assault on the environment in the name of progress. Knowlton examines the grand artistic and entrepreneurial visions behind Coral Gables, Boca Raton, Miami Beach, and other storied sites, as well as the darker side of the frenzy....

"At Cape Three Points on the beautiful Ghanaian coast, a canoe washes up at an oil rig site. The two bodies in the canoe--who turn out to be a prominent, wealthy, middle-aged married couple--have obviously been murdered; the way Mr. Smith-Aidoo has been gruesomely decapitated suggests the killer was trying to send a specific message--but what, and to whom, is a mystery. The Smith-Aidoos, pillars in their community, are mourned by everyone, but especially...