Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Genealogy of a Murder: Four Generations, Three Families, One Fateful Night

Genealogy of a Murder: Four Generations, Three Families, One Fateful Night

Genealogy of a Murder: Four Generations, Three Families, One Fateful Night by Lisa Belkin
Published by W. W. Norton & Company on May 30, 2023
Format: audiobook
Genres: True Crime
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Synopsis

Independence Day weekend, 1960: a young cop is murdered, shocking his close-knit community in Stamford, Connecticut. The killer remains at large, his identity still unknown. But on a beach not far away, a young Army doctor, on vacation from his post at a research lab in a maximum-security prison, faces a chilling realization. He knows who the shooter is. In fact, the man—a prisoner out on parole—had called him only days before. By helping his former charge and trainee, the doctor, a believer in second chances, may have inadvertently helped set the murder into motion. And with that one phone call, may have sealed a policeman’s fate.
Alvin Tarlov, David Troy, and Joseph DeSalvo were all born of the Great Depression, all with grandparents who’d left different homelands for the same American Dream. How did one become a doctor, one a cop, and one a convict? In Genealogy of a Murder, journalist Lisa Belkin traces the paths of each of these three men—one of them her stepfather. Her canvas is large, spanning the first half of the 20th century: immigration, the struggles of the working class, prison reform, medical experiments, politics and war, the nature/nurture debate, epigenetics, the infamous Leopold and Loeb case, and the history of motorcycle racing. It is also intimate: a look into the workings of the mind and heart.
Following these threads to their tragic outcome in July 1960, and beyond, Belkin examines the coincidences and choices that led to one fateful night. The result is a brilliantly researched, narratively ingenious story, which illuminates how we shape history even as we are shaped by it.

The Lost World of the Old Ones: Discoveries in the Ancient Southwest

The Lost World of the Old Ones: Discoveries in the Ancient Southwest

The Lost World of the Old Ones: Discoveries in the Ancient Southwest by David Roberts
on April 13, 2015
Pages: 368
Format: ebook
Genres: Natural History, Nonfiction, People's history
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Synopsis

In this thrilling story of intellectual and archaeological discovery, David Roberts recounts his last twenty years of far-flung exploits in search of spectacular prehistoric ruins and rock art panels known to very few modern travelers. His adventures range across Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and southwestern Colorado, and illuminate the mysteries of the Ancestral Puebloans and their contemporary neighbors the Mogollon and Fremont, as well as of the more recent Navajo and Comanche.

Escalante’s Dream: On the Trail of the Spanish Discovery of the Southwest

Escalante’s Dream: On the Trail of the Spanish Discovery of the Southwest

Escalante's Dream: On the Trail of the Spanish Discovery of the Southwest by David Roberts
on July 16, 2019
Pages: 360
Format: hardback
Genres: Native American, Nonfiction, People's history, United States
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Synopsis

Famed adventure writer David Roberts re-creates the extraordinary 1,700-mile journey of the eighteenth-century Domínguez-Escalante scouting expedition.
In late July 1776, fathers Francisco Atanasio Domínguez and Francisco Vélez de Escalante set out from Santa Fe to chart a route to the new Spanish missions in California. The Fransiscans planned to scout the country for mineral wealth and locate the Ute and Navajo tribes for conversion. In present- day Utah, however, the dangers of starvation and hypothermia forced them to turn back. By November the friars were reduced to survival mode: stymied by the raging Colorado River, they had to kill their horses for food. At last they succeeded in fording the river at a place later known as “Crossing of the Fathers.”
In this adventure- history, David Roberts travels the Spaniards’ forgotten route, using Escalante’s first- person report as his guide. Blending personal and historical narrative, he relives the glories, catastrophes, and courage of this desperate journey.

Northland: A 4,000-Mile Journey Along America’s Forgotten Border

Northland: A 4,000-Mile Journey Along America’s Forgotten Border

Northland: A 4,000-Mile Journey Along America's Forgotten Border by Porter Fox
on July 3, 2018
Pages: 272
Format: hardback
Genres: Environment, Natural History, Nature, Nonfiction, Travel
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Synopsis

A quest to rediscover America’s other border―the fascinating but little-known northern one.

America’s northern border is the world’s longest international boundary, yet it remains obscure even to Americans. The northern border was America’s primary border for centuries—much of the early history of the United States took place there—and to the tens of millions who live and work near the line, the region even has its own name: the northland.

Travel writer Porter Fox spent three years exploring 4,000 miles of the border between Maine and Washington, traveling by canoe, freighter, car, and foot. In Northland, he blends a deeply reported and beautifully written story of the region’s history with a riveting account of his travels. Setting out from the easternmost point in the mainland United States, Fox follows explorer Samuel de Champlain’s adventures across the Northeast; recounts the rise and fall of the timber, iron, and rail industries; crosses the Great Lakes on a freighter; tracks America’s fur traders through the Boundary Waters; and traces the forty-ninth parallel from Minnesota to the Pacific Ocean.

Fox, who grew up the son of a boat-builder in Maine’s northland, packs his narrative with colorful characters (Captain Meriwether Lewis, railroad tycoon James J. Hill, Chief Red Cloud of the Lakota Sioux) and extraordinary landscapes (Glacier National Park, the Northwest Angle, Washington’s North Cascades). He weaves in his encounters with residents, border guards, Indian activists, and militia leaders to give a dynamic portrait of the northland today, wracked by climate change, water wars, oil booms, and border security.