The Night Fire

A FINALIST FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW BEST CRIME NOVEL OF THE YEAR A CrimeReads Best Crime Novel Notable selection Harry Bosch and LAPD Detective Renée Ballard come together again on the murder case that obsessed Bosch's mentor, the man who trained him---new from #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Connelly Back when Harry Bosch was just a rookie homicide detective, he had an inspiring mentor who taught him to take the work personally and light the fire of relentlessness for every case. Now that mentor, John Jack Thompson, is dead, and his widow gives Bosch a murder book, one that Thompson took with him when he left the LAPD twenty years before -- the unsolved killing of a troubled young man. Bosch takes the murder book to Detective Renée Ballard and asks her to help him discover what about this crime lit Thompson's fire all those years ago. As she begins her inqueries -- while still working her own cases on the midnight shift -- Ballad finds aspects of the initial investigation that just don't add up. The bond between Bosch and Ballard tightens as they become a formidable investigation team. And they soon arrive at a disturbing question: Did Thompson steal the murder book to work the case in retirement, or to make sure it never got solved? Written with the intense pacing and masterful suspense that have made Michael Connelly "the hard-boiled fiction master of our time" (NPR), The Night Fire continues the unofficial partnership of two fierce detectives determined not to let the fire with burn out.

It began with a spark... A house is burning. Its six tenants include a failed priest, a naturalist, a neurosurgeon and a photographer. Their landlord's relationship to them is both intimate and shadowy. At times he shares their obsessions and memories. He will also share their fate. The passions of these individuals reach beyond the dying house that holds them. One recalls a lonely childhood, another the cremation grounds of India, another an African refugee camp. But will their stories be consumed forever by the flames?

Los Angeles Times Bestseller This riveting tour through 1960s Los Angeles is a “history from below, in the very best sense” as it celebrates the “grassroots heroes and struggles” of the social movements of the era (Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Natural Causes). “Authoritative and impressive.” —Los Angeles Times “Monumental.” —Guardian Los Angeles in the sixties was a hotbed of political and social upheaval. The city was a launchpad for Black Power—where Malcolm X and Angela Davis first came to prominence and the Watts uprising shook the nation. The city was home to the Chicano Blowouts and Chicano Moratorium, as well as being the birthplace of “Asian American” as a political identity. It was a locus of the antiwar movement, gay liberation movement, and women’s movement, and, of course, the capital of California counterculture. Mike Davis and Jon Wiener provide the first comprehensive movement history of L.A. in the sixties, drawing on extensive archival research and dozens of interviews with principal figures, as well as the authors’ storied personal histories as activists. Following on from Davis’s award-winning L.A. history, City of Quartz, Set the Night on Fire is a historical tour de force, delivered in scintillating and fiercely beautiful prose.

A woman discovers her parents were not the people she thought they were. Who is she? And why is someone trying to kill her? Lila Hilliard returns home to Chicago for the holidays only to find someone is stalking her. Her father and brother are trapped in a fire, and she senses someone is following her. As she desperately tries to figure out who is after her and why, she uncovers information about her father’s past that ties him to the volatile movement of young activists during the late Sixties. Which means her parents were not the people she was told they were. Who were her parents? And why was the secret kept from her? As Lila looks for answers, a man on a motorcycle slows, pulls out a a semi-automatic, and aims it at her. Suddenly a stranger darts out, pulls her to safety, then disappears. Who is this stranger? Is he Lila's stalker? The story then takes us back to the late Sixties in Chicago where 6 young people gathered during the Democratic Convention. Through their stories, the truth about Lila's family is gradually revealed, and the threat to Lila in the present becomes clear. (A plus: some of the scenes in the historical section are suddenly relevant again) Part thriller, part historical novel, part love story, Set The Night on Fire reveals the resolution to Lila's family secrets. It also tells an extraordinary tale about the stormy Chicago 1968 Democratic convention, SDS, the Black Panthers, women's issues, and a group of idealists who were sure they would change the world.

George Edward Stanley's powerful Night Fires explores the influence of the Klan in 1920's Oklahoma, and the danger of succumbing to peer pressure.

The acclaimed Southern mystery master delivers “literary fiction, a spy novel, and a relentless thriller all in one”—a perfect reads for Linwood Barclay and Michael Farris Smith (Lee Goldberg, New York Times bestselling author). Nick Anthony has retreated to the North Carolina mountains to mourn the untimely death of his wife. Once a popular professor, Nick just wants to be left alone with his grief. But when his estranged brother and sister-in-law die in a house fire, a stunned Nick learns he has a niece, Annalise, who is missing. At the scene of the crime, the men who set the fire have realized Annalise, and the information they are looking for, got away. Feverish and exhausted, she stumbles onto her uncle's porch, throwing Nick into the middle of the mystery of her parents’ death and the dangerous criminals hunting her down. Hired to retrieve the stolen information at any price, private military contractor Cole and his team track Annalise to Nick’s cabin. But Nick has a hidden past of his own—and more than a few deadly tricks up his sleeve.

The fire was visible from seventy miles away and the heat generated was so intense that a helicopter could only circle the rig at a perimeter of one mile. On the surface of the sea, a converted fishing trawler inched as close as possible, but the paint on the vessel’s hull blistered and burnt. In the water surrounding the inferno, men’s heads could be seen bobbing like apples as their yellow hard hats melted with the heat. On 6 July 1988 a series of explosions ripped through the Piper Alpha oil platform, 110 miles north-east of Aberdeen in the North Sea. Ablaze with 226 men on board, the searing temperatures caused the platform to collapse in just two hours. Only sixty-one would survive by leaping over 100 feet into the water below. Newly updated for the thirtieth year since the tragedy, Fire in the Night by journalist Stephen McGinty tells in gripping detail the devastating story of that summer evening. Combining interviews with survivors, witness statements and transcripts from the official inquiry into the disaster, this is the moving and vivid tale of what remains the worst offshore oil-rig disaster to date.

In his tell-all, legendary Doors guitarist, Robby Krieger, one of Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time," opens up about his band's meteoric career, his own darkest moments, and the most famous black eye in rock 'n' roll. ​Few bands are as shrouded in the murky haze of rock mythology as The Doors, and parsing fact from fiction has been a virtually impossible task. But now, after fifty years, The Doors' notoriously quiet guitarist is finally breaking his silence to set the record straight. Through a series of vignettes, Robby Krieger takes readers back to where it all happened: the pawn shop where he bought his first guitar; the jail cell he was tossed into after a teenage drug bust; his parents' living room where his first songwriting sessions with Jim Morrison took place; the empty bars and backyard parties where The Doors played their first awkward gigs; the studios where their iconic songs were recorded; and the many concert venues that erupted into historic riots. Set the Night on Fire is packed with never-before-told stories from The Doors' most vital years, and offers a fresh perspective on the most infamous moments of the band's career. Krieger also goes into heartbreaking detail about his life's most difficult struggles, ranging from drug addiction to cancer, but he balances out the sorrow with humorous anecdotes about run-ins with unstable fans, famous musicians, and one really angry monk. Set the Night on Fire is at once an insightful time capsule of the '60s counterculture, a moving reflection on what it means to find oneself as a musician, and a touching tale of a life lived non-traditionally. It's not only a must-read for Doors fans, but an essential volume of American pop culture history.