Book Clubs: Dying to Read

In this searing courtroom drama, best-selling  author John Grisham probes the savage depths of  racial violence... as he delivers a compelling tale  of uncertain justice in a small southern  town... Clanton, Mississippi. The life of a  ten-year-old girl is shattered by two drunken and  remorseless young man. The mostly white town reacts  with shock and horror at the inhuman crime. Until  her black father acquires an assault rifle -- and  takes justice into his own outraged hands. For ten days, as burning crosses and the crack of  sniper fire spread through the streets of  Clanton, the nation sits spellbound as young defense  attorney Jake Brigance struggles to save his  client's life... and then his own...

2024 EDGAR AWARD NOMINEE FOR BEST FACT CRIME NOVEL In Tangled Vines, bestselling true crime author John Glatt reconstructs the rise of the prestigious Murdaugh family and the shocking double murder that led to the downfall of its patriarch, Alex Murdaugh. Among the lush, tree-lined waterways of South Carolina low country, the Murdaugh name means power. A century-old, multimillion-dollar law practice has catapulted the family into incredible wealth and local celebrity--but it was an unimaginable tragedy that would thrust them into the national spotlight. On June 7th, 2021, prominent attorney Alex Murdaugh discovered the bodies of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, on the grounds of their thousand-acre hunting lodge. The mystery deepened only months later when Alex himself was discovered shot in the head on a local roadside. But as authorities scrambled for clues and the community reeled from the loss and media attention, dark secrets about this Southern legal dynasty came to light. The Murdaughs, it turned out, were feared as much as they were loved. And they wouldn't hesitate to wield their influence to protect one of their own; two years before he was killed, a highly intoxicated Paul Murdaugh was at the helm of a boat when it crashed and killed a teenage girl, and his light treatment by police led to speculation that privilege had come into play. As bombshells of financial fraud were revealed and more suspicious deaths were linked to the Murdaughs, a new portrait of Alex Murdaugh emerged: a desperate man on the brink of ruin who would do anything, even plan his own death, to save his family's reputation.

*INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER* One of Barack Obama's Recommended Reads for Summer * New York Times Notable Book * NPR's Best Books of 2021 * Washington Post's Best Thriller and Mystery Books of the Year * TIME Magazine's 100 Must-Read Books of 2021 * New York Public Library's Best Books of the Year * Goodreads Choice Award Nominee * Book of the Month's Book of the Year Finalist "Provocative, violent -- beautiful and moving, too." --Washington Post "Superb...Cuts right to the heart of the most important questions of our times." --Michael Connelly "A tour de force - poignant, action-packed, and profound." --Milwaukee Journal Sentinel A Black father. A white father. Two murdered sons. A quest for vengeance. Ike Randolph has been out of jail for fifteen years, with not so much as a speeding ticket in all that time. But a Black man with cops at the door knows to be afraid. The last thing he expects to hear is that his son Isiah has been murdered, along with Isiah's white husband, Derek. Ike had never fully accepted his son but is devastated by his loss. Derek's father Buddy Lee was almost as ashamed of Derek for being gay as Derek was ashamed of his father's criminal record. Buddy Lee still has contacts in the underworld, though, and he wants to know who killed his boy. Ike and Buddy Lee, two ex-cons with little else in common other than a criminal past and a love for their dead sons, band together in their desperate desire for revenge. In their quest to do better for their sons in death than they did in life, hardened men Ike and Buddy Lee will confront their own prejudices about their sons and each other, as they rain down vengeance upon those who hurt their boys. Provocative and fast-paced, S. A. Cosby's Razorblade Tears is a story of bloody retribution, heartfelt change - and maybe even redemption. "A visceral full-body experience, a sharp jolt to the heart, and a treat for the senses...Cosby's moody southern thriller marries the skillful action and plotting of Lee Child with the atmosphere and insight of Attica Locke." --NPR

The award-winning true-crime account of a Danish nurse accused of killing her patients--now a Netflix miniseries starring Josephine Park. In the early hours of March 1, 2015, Danish police received an alarming call from a nurse at a provincial hospital. She suspected her colleague, fellow nurse Christina Aistrup Hansen, of deliberately killing patients--and she feared it had just happened again. Soon, other coworkers revealed their own concerns about Hansen. Indeed, some had been harboring suspicions about her for years . . . So why had no one come forward sooner? And with the alleged victims already cremated, where was the evidence? Could this all be a case of small-town gossip snowballing out of control? Drawing on police and autopsy reports, medical records, private correspondence, and testimony from key witnesses--as well as Hansen herself--Danish journalist Kristian Corfixen reconstructs the fateful night shift in which three patients died under mysterious circumstances, and the sensational trial it set in motion. Originally published in Denmark, Corfixen's acclaimed investigation of a disturbingly complex case raises critical concerns about the trust we put in our caretakers, and the role of indicative evidence in criminal courts.

* NOW A NETFLIX FILM * AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR * A spellbinding Swedish novel that follows a young indigenous woman as she struggles to defend her family's reindeer herd and culture amidst xenophobia, climate change, and a devious hunter whose targeted kills are considered mere theft in the eyes of the law. On a winter day north of the Arctic Circle, nine-year-old Elsa--daughter of Sámi reindeer herders--sees a man brutally kill her beloved reindeer calf and threaten her into silence. When her father takes her to report the crime, local police tell them that there is nothing they can do about these "stolen" animals. Killings like these are classified as theft in the reports that continue to pile up, uninvestigated. But reindeer are not just the Sámi's livelihood, they also hold spiritual significance; attacking a reindeer is an attack on the culture itself. Ten years later, hatred and threats against the Sámi keep escalating, and more reindeer are tortured and killed in Elsa's community. Finally, she's had enough and decides to push back on the apathetic police force. The hunter comes after her this time, leading to a catastrophic final confrontation. Based on real events, Ann-Helén Laestadius's award-winning novel Stolen is part coming-of-age story, part love song to a disappearing natural world, and part electrifying countdown to a dramatic resolution--a searing depiction of a forgotten part of Sweden.

In this searing courtroom drama, best-selling  author John Grisham probes the savage depths of  racial violence... as he delivers a compelling tale  of uncertain justice in a small southern  town... Clanton, Mississippi. The life of a  ten-year-old girl is shattered by two drunken and  remorseless young man. The mostly white town reacts  with shock and horror at the inhuman crime. Until  her black father acquires an assault rifle -- and  takes justice into his own outraged hands. For ten days, as burning crosses and the crack of  sniper fire spread through the streets of  Clanton, the nation sits spellbound as young defense  attorney Jake Brigance struggles to save his  client's life... and then his own...

The Roaring Twenties - the Jazz Age - has been characterized as a time of Gatsby frivolity. But it was also the height of the uniquely American hate group, the Ku Klux Klan. Their domain was not the old Confederacy, but the Heartland and the West. They hated Blacks, Jews, Catholics and immigrants in equal measure, and took radical steps to keep these people from the American promise. And the man who set in motion their takeover of great swaths of America was a charismatic charlatan named D.C. Stephenson. Stephenson was a magnetic presence whose life story changed with every telling. Within two years of his arrival in Indiana, he d become the Grand Dragon of the state and the architect of the strategy that brought the group out of the shadows - their message endorsed from the pulpits of local churches, spread at family picnics and town celebrations. Judges, prosecutors, ministers, governors and senators across the country all proudly proclaimed their membership. But at the peak of his influence, it was a seemingly powerless woman - Madge Oberholtzer - who would reveal his secret cruelties, and whose deathbed testimony finally brought the Klan to their knees. A Fever in the Heartland marries a propulsive drama to a powerful and page-turning reckoning with one of the darkest threads in American history.