Book Chat August 31: Whiskey Sour

"Big Son is a spirit of the times--the times being 1837. Behind his broad shoulders, shiny hair, and church-organ laugh, Big Son practically made Ohio City all by himself. The feats of this proto-superhero have earned him wonder and whiskey toasts but very little in the way of fortune. And without money, Big cannot become an honest husband to his beloved Cloe (who may or may not want to be his wife, honestly). In pursuit of a steady wage, our hero...

"The epic true crime story of bootlegger George Remus and the murder that shocked the nation, from the New York Times bestselling author of Sin in the Second City and Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy In the early days of Prohibition, long before Al Capone became a household name, a German immigrant named George Remus quits practicing law and starts trafficking whiskey. Within two years he's a multi-millionaire. The press calls him "King of the Bootleggers,"...

The author explores the origins, implementation, and failure of that great American delusion known as Prohibition. His book explains how Prohibition happened, what life under it was like, and what it did to the country. It is a history of one of the most puzzling eras in American history when the Constitution was amended to restrict human behavior. In the 19th century, the U.S. was notably liquor-soaked. By 1917, some people were prepared to translate...

As a senior in high school Quentin Coldwater became preoccupied with a series of fantasy novels he read as a child, set in a magical land called Fillory. After graduating from college and being admitted into a highly exclusive, secret society of magic in upstate New York, he makes a stunning discovery: Fillory is real. But the land of Quentin's fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he could have imagined for his childhood dream...

"A holiday tale from the New York Times bestselling author of the Walt Longmire mystery series, the inspiration for A&E's hit show Longmire "It's a question of what you have to do, what you have to live with if you don't." Sheriff Walt Longmire is reading A Christmas Carol in his office on December 24th when he's interrupted by the ghost of Christmas past: a young woman with a hairline scar across her forehead and more than a few questions about Walt's...

1953. Simon Putnam, newly hired by a distinguished New York publishing firm, gets his first assignment: editing The Vixen, the Patriot and the Fanatic, a lurid bodice-ripper improbably based on the recent trial and execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. It is a potboiler intended to shore up the firm's failing finances. Simon's mother was a childhood friend of Ethel Rosenberg's; his parents mourn Ethel's death. Simon meets The Vixen author, reckless,...

Suffering an intense year of public and police scrutiny after being wrongly implicated in his fiance's murder, Boston lawyer Eli Landon takes sanctuary in a centuries-old family home and falls in love with resident housekeeper Abra Walsh, with whom he is entangled in an old, life-threatening mystery.

Stella Crater, the judge's wife, is the picture of propriety. Ritzi, a leggy showgirl with Broadway aspirations, thinks moonlighting in the judge's bed is the quickest way off the chorus line. Maria Simon, the dutiful maid, has the judge to thank for her husband's recent promotion to detective in the NYPD. On a sultry summer night, as rumors circulate about the judge's involvement in wide-scale political corruption, the Honorable Joseph Crater steps...