As 11-year-old Claire Hofer nears the field where her father was raking hay, she sees a skinny, unfriendly-looking stranger scuffling through the stubble toward her. The man is Township Constable John McIntire, and Claire's father is dead. McIntire finds the crime baffling. Reuben Hofer has only lived in the old St. Adele schoolhouse since early May and his family had little contact with anyone in the community save the Catholic priest and Doctor Mark Guibard, who's been attending Hofer's chronically ill, morbidly obese wife. Old acquaintances of the Hofers turn up, but no one seems to have a plausible motive for murder. Soon the spotlight of the murder investigation brings new misery to a family already devastated by misfortune and poverty, and McIntire confronts a fumbling nemesis in the bewildered and frightened, but determined, Claire.
A grizzled Lake Superior fisherman with a massive allergy to bees dies very early one morning alone on his boat. Was he stung to death? John McIntire, retired from a career in military intelligence and striving to regain a place in his boyhood home after 30 years away, is serving as township constable. He questions the easy verdict. The town of St. Adele has little experience with violent death—or murder. Nor does McIntire, despite fighting in two world wars. Worse, all the suspects are friends and neighbors, men and women he grew up with "talking Swede." The dead man, last of a Norwegian family who came to raise apples in the struggling rural township sandwiched between the Huron Mountains of Michigan's Upper Peninsula and the southern shore of Lake Superior, had no real enemies despite his gruff temper. And he had little to leave aside from a heavily mortgaged boat. So, who wanted to kill him? Saddened by violence striking Utopia, worried his British bride might cut and run, his task complicated by taciturn witnesses and six party telephone lines, the naturally humorous McIntire, while bringing a murderer to justice, struggles to evolve a new perspective on a rural community he has idealized for three decades. Rich in magnificent landscape, vivid characters stepping from a past both thoroughly Midwestern and multi-ethnic, and a secret-laden story, filled with laughter and warm insights, Past Imperfect offers a new voice of great promise reminiscent of the debuts of Steve Hamilton, A Cold Day in Paradise, and William Kent Krueger, Iron Lake.
Autumn in Michigan's Upper Peninsula means hunting season, and the fall of 1950 finds most everyone in St. Adele township hunting for something—deer, grouse, uranium; love, redemption, escape; a story, a husband, a murderer... When the son of summer residents at the exclusive Shawanok Club is found dead after an uproarious dance at the town hall, the sheriff is flummoxed, and everyone is appalled: Bambi was found in the loft over the tool shed, bound, gagged, and inexpertly scalped. Who better to search for the killer than St. Adele's reluctant constable, John McIntire? The trail he must follow branches off like the spokes of a wheel, in multiple directions, leading to multiple dead ends. The only common link seems to be the boy's parents: a father who is mysteriously unavailable, a mother on a mission to see her son's killer dead, who remains sequestered in her rented mansion, baking cream pies and playing the piano. Her imported private eye seems more interested in dallying with McIntire's exotic Aunt Siobhan, who's just turned up on his doorstep some 25 years after she ran off with a carnival worker as a teen. And Bambi's mentor on a summer's search for uranium, a hot prospect in Flambeau County, is more conversant with archaeological artifacts than Geiger counters. McIntire's investigation takes him from the haunts of the affluent visitors, to the backwoods camp of a Rube Goldberg hermit, and finally to an abandoned gold mine where he learns what really happened that summer's night....
January, 1951, while the country is in the grip of war in Korea, the threat of nuclear annihilation, and Senator Joe McCarthy’s Red Scare, the residents of St. Adele, Michigan, are more concerned with staying warm and shoveling snow until a bizarre ice storm brings down a towering pine. Entangled in its roots is evidence that leads Constable John McIntire to the abandoned farmstead of a young couple who had supposedly left the community years before, part of an exodus of Finnish-Americans gone off to build a workers’ Utopia in the Soviet republic of Karelia. McIntire’s fears are realized when he discovers two bodies, buried sixteen years in an unused cistern. In his zeal to uncover the truth, McIntire brings the scrutiny—and the suspicion—of a Red-hunting government agent upon his neighbors and himself. It is only the beginning of his mis-calculations. Each step in investigating the deaths seems only to bring more misery to the living. Old wounds are opened, old terrors rekindled, and old wrongs exposed. McIntire himself is not immune. He struggles to solve the two-decades-old murders, while a part of the past he hoped to bury forever threatens to destroy his new life.
A grizzled Lake Superior fisherman with a massive allergy to bees dies very early one morning alone on his boat. Was he stung to death? John McIntire, retired from a career in military intelligence and striving to regain a place in his boyhood home after 30 years away, is serving as township constable. He questions the easy verdict. The town of St. Adele has little experience with violent death—or murder. Nor does McIntire, despite fighting in two world wars. Worse, all the suspects are friends and neighbors, men and women he grew up with “talking Swede.” The dead man, last of a Norwegian family who came to raise apples in the struggling rural township sandwiched between the Huron Mountains of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and the southern shore of Lake Superior, had no real enemies despite his gruff temper. And he had little to leave aside from a heavily mortgaged boat. So, who wanted to kill him? Saddened by violence striking Utopia, worried his British bride might cut and run, his task complicated by taciturn witnesses and six party telephone lines, the naturally humorous McIntire, while bringing a murderer to justice, struggles to evolve a new perspective on a rural community he has idealized for three decades.
It is May 1568, and Caitlin Campbell has recently had her heart broken by a callous young nobleman. With a track record of not choosing men well, she meets Darach MacNaghten, whose clan has been outlawed. Not only is he everything Caitlin should be wary of, but he is a man of many secrets, none of which bode well for the Campbells. He comes to Kilchurn to free his imprisoned older brother, but when he realizes that his plan has no chance of success, he kidnaps Caitlin to hold her as hostage until his brother is freed. This plan, so simple on the surface, soon leads to a clash of wills between two proud, headstrong people. And the problems only worsen the closer Darach's plan draws to its unforeseen conclusion. Fans of Morgan's These Highland Hills series and historical fiction readers will enjoy this dramatic conclusion to the series.
On a stifling mid-summer day, 11-year-old Claire Hofer descends from her perch in a pine tree and sets out carrying lunch to her father, where he’s at work raking hay. As she nears the field, she hears no rumbling tractor and sees only a skinny, unfriendly-looking stranger scuffling through the stubble toward her. She turns and runs, but there is no escaping the troubles to come. The man is Township Constable John McIntire, and Claire’s father is dead. McIntire finds the crime baffling. Reuben Hofer has only lived in the old St. Adele schoolhouse since early May; hardly long enough to make enemies. His family has had little contact with anyone in the community save the Catholic priest and Doctor Mark Guibard, who’s been attending Hofer’s chronically ill, morbidly obese wife. But Hofer was not exactly the newcomer McIntire had believed. During the war, he spent time incarcerated only a few miles away in a Civilian Public Service camp—a camp for the rebellious conscientious objectors that the church-run institutions couldn’t handle. Old acquaintances turn up, among them a former camp guard and a femme fatale hairdresser. But there seems to be no one with a plausible motive for murder or for the disturbing and macabre incidents that follow. More understandable is the Hofer family’s lack of cooperation in the investigation. The victim’s years in the CPS camps, followed by a stretch in federal prison, meant that he was a stranger to his children—until he returned home to become their overlord. The spotlight of a murder investigation causes greater misery to a family already devastated by misfortune and poverty, and McIntire confronts a fumbling nemesis in the bewildered, frightened, but determined, Claire.
“The famous 1961 Betty and Barney Hill abduction by non-humans is taken apart, meticulously re-examined by Betty’s niece Kathleen Marden and nuclear physicist Stanton T. Friedman, and reinforced by the pressure of facts.” —Linda Moulton Howe, Emmy award-winning TV producer, reporter, and editor, Earthfiles.com Today, 60 years after the UFO abduction of Betty and Barney Hill, more and more people are convinced that UFOs are real and their existence is being covered up by the government. If you have doubts or questions about the Hill case or alien experiences in general, Captured! will give you the answers you’re searching for. The 1961 abduction of the Hills stirred worldwide interest and enthralled the public and media for decades. The case is mentioned in almost all UFO abduction books. It also became a target for debunkers, who still attack it today. But the complete story of what really happened that day, its effect on the participants, and the findings of investigators has never been told—until now. In Captured! you’ll get an insider’s look at the alien abduction, previously unpublished information about the lives of the Hills before and after Barney’s death in 1969, their status as celebrities, Betty’s experiences as a UFO investigator, and other activities before her death in 2004. Kathleen Marden, Betty Hill’s niece, shares details from her discussions with Betty and from the evidence of the UFO abduction. She also looks at the Hills’ riveting hypnosis sessions about their time onboard the spacecraft. The results of a new chemical analysis of the dress Betty was abducted in is shared, which found unusual and rare elements on it Newly discovered letters at the American Philosophical Society by debunker Philip Klass, regarding an orchestrated plot to paint Betty as delusional reveal what early detractors tried to do. In addition, coauthor, physicist, and ufologist Stanton T. Friedman reviews and refutes the arguments of those who have attacked the Hill case, including the star map Betty Hill saw inside the craft and later recreated.
Traces the Hill family back to the 17th century. Brothers James and John Hill departed from Plymouth, England for New Zealand on the ship the "Sir George Seymour" (one of Canterbury's First Four Ships) arriving at Lyttelton in 1850. The item traces both their ancestors and James' descendants.
The sparsely populated Cajalco basin holds a rich and varied history. Native American pictographs, grinding slicks, and mortars dot the landscape, while mine shafts and tailings reflect the arduous labor of tin and gold miners in an earlier time. Except for these seekers of fortune, hermits, and the occasional rancher or sheepherder, there were few inhabitants in this region until Lawrence Holmes planted 50,000 carob trees in the 1920s and sold off plots to potential carob barons. Soon the valley boasted carob and citrus groves, homes, a school, and a store. The need for water in Los Angeles brought significant change to the valley when the Metropolitan Water Department constructed a terminus reservoir for the proposed Colorado River Aqueduct during the 1930s. This and many other events in the history of Lake Mathews and Gavilan Hills are illustrated here for the first time through 200 photographs, many never seen before by the public.
Orphan heiress and Scotswoman, Regan MacLaren, is a bride of but one day when her husband is murdered. As a result, Regan loses her memory and with it her place in the world. Laird and warrior, Iain Campbell, is waiting for the love he knows God will bring him. But a woman near death and without a memory isn't quite what he expected. With their clans feuding, Regan and Iain should never have met. But, when their paths cross, they come to know and love each other--only to encounter more obstacles in their way. Iain's a suspect in the murder of Regan's husband, and he soon becomes a stumbling block to unholy ambitions that may well lead to more deaths, including his own. Will betrayal and suspicion force them apart forever? Or can their love help heal their clans and their land?
“The famous 1961 Betty and Barney Hill abduction by non-humans is taken apart, meticulously re-examined by Betty’s niece Kathleen Marden and nuclear physicist Stanton T. Friedman, and reinforced by the pressure of facts.” —Linda Moulton Howe, Emmy award-winning TV producer, reporter, and editor, Earthfiles.com Today, 60 years after the UFO abduction of Betty and Barney Hill, more and more people are convinced that UFOs are real and their existence is being covered up by the government. If you have doubts or questions about the Hill case or alien experiences in general, Captured! will give you the answers you’re searching for. The 1961 abduction of the Hills stirred worldwide interest and enthralled the public and media for decades. The case is mentioned in almost all UFO abduction books. It also became a target for debunkers, who still attack it today. But the complete story of what really happened that day, its effect on the participants, and the findings of investigators has never been told—until now. In Captured! you’ll get an insider’s look at the alien abduction, previously unpublished information about the lives of the Hills before and after Barney’s death in 1969, their status as celebrities, Betty’s experiences as a UFO investigator, and other activities before her death in 2004. Kathleen Marden, Betty Hill’s niece, shares details from her discussions with Betty and from the evidence of the UFO abduction. She also looks at the Hills’ riveting hypnosis sessions about their time onboard the spacecraft. The results of a new chemical analysis of the dress Betty was abducted in is shared, which found unusual and rare elements on it Newly discovered letters at the American Philosophical Society by debunker Philip Klass, regarding an orchestrated plot to paint Betty as delusional reveal what early detractors tried to do. In addition, coauthor, physicist, and ufologist Stanton T. Friedman reviews and refutes the arguments of those who have attacked the Hill case, including the star map Betty Hill saw inside the craft and later recreated.
In the harsh Scottish highlands of 1565, superstition and treachery threaten a truce between rival clans. It's a weak truce at first, bound only by an arranged engagement between Anne MacGregor and Niall Campbell-the heirs of the feuding families. While Niall wrestles with his suspicions about a traitor in his clan, Anne's actions do not go unnoticed. And as accusations of witchcraft abound, the strong and sometimes callous Campbell heir must fight for Anne's safety among disconcerted clan members. Meanwhile his own safety in threatened with the ever-present threat of someone who wants him dead. Will Niall discover the traitor's identity in time? Can Anne find a way to fit into her new surroundings? Will the two learn to love each other despite the conflict? With a perfect mix of a burgeoning romance and thrilling suspense, this book is historical fiction at its best.
Autumn in Michigan's Upper Peninsula means hunting season, and the fall of 1950 finds most everyone in St. Adele township hunting for something - deer, grouse, uranium; love, redemption, escape; a story, a husband, a murderer. When the son of summer residents at the exclusive Shawanok Club is found dead after an uproarious dance at the town hall, the sheriff is fl ummoxed, and everyone is appalled: Bambi was found in the loft over the tool shed, bound, gagged, and inexpertly scalped. Who better to search for the killer than St. Adele's reluctant constable, John McIntire? The trail he must follow branches off like the spokes of a wheel, leading to multiple dead ends. The only common link seems to be the boy's parents: a father who is mysteriously unavailable, a mother, on a mission to see her son's killer dead, who remains sequestered in her rented mansion, baking cream pies and playing the piano. Her imported private eye seems more interested in dallying with McIntire's exotic Aunt Siobhan, who's turned up on his doorstep some 25 years after she ran off with a carnival worker as a teen. And Bambi's mentor on a summer's search for uranium, a hot prospect in Flambeau County, is more conversant with archaeological artifacts than Geiger counters.
January, 1951, while the country is in the grip of war in Korea, the threat of nuclear annihilation, and Senator Joe McCarthy’s Red Scare, the residents of St. Adele, Michigan, are more concerned with staying warm and shoveling snow until a bizarre ice storm brings down a towering pine. Entangled in its roots is evidence that leads Constable John McIntire to the abandoned farmstead of a young couple who had supposedly left the community years before, part of an exodus of Finnish-Americans gone off to build a workers’ Utopia in the Soviet republic of Karelia. McIntire’s fears are realized when he discovers two bodies, buried sixteen years in an unused cistern. In his zeal to uncover the truth, McIntire brings the scrutiny—and the suspicion—of a Red-hunting government agent upon his neighbors and himself. It is only the beginning of his mis-calculations. Each step in investigating the deaths seems only to bring more misery to the living. Old wounds are opened, old terrors rekindled, and old wrongs exposed. McIntire himself is not immune. He struggles to solve the two-decades-old murders, while a part of the past he hoped to bury forever threatens to destroy his new life.
Autumn in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula means hunting season, and the fall of 1950 finds most everyone in St. Adele township hunting for something—deer, grouse, uranium; love, redemption, escape; a story, a husband, a murderer. When the son of summer residents at the exclusive Shawanok Club is found dead after an uproarious dance at the town hall, the sheriff is flummoxed, and everyone is appalled: Bambi was found in the loft over the tool shed, bound, gagged, and inexpertly scalped. Who better to search for the killer than St. Adele’s reluctant constable, John McIntire? The trail he must follow branches off like the spokes of a wheel, leading to multiple dead ends. The only common link seems to be the boy’s parents: a father who is mysteriously unavailable, a mother, on a mission to see her son’s killer dead, who remains sequestered in her rented mansion, baking cream pies and playing the piano. Her imported private eye seems more interested in dallying with McIntire’s exotic Aunt Siobhan, who’s turned up on his doorstep some 25 years after she ran off with a carnival worker as a teen. And Bambi’s mentor on a summer’s search for uranium, a hot prospect in Flambeau County, is more conversant with archaeological artifacts than Geiger counters. McIntire’s investigation takes him from the haunts of the affluent visitors, to the backwoods camp of a Rube Goldberg hermit, and finally to an abandoned gold mine where he learns what really happened that autumn night....
With My Life on the Run, Bart Yasso--an icon of one of the most enduringly popular recreational sports in the United States--offers a touching and humorous memoir about the rewards and challenges of running. Recounting his adventures in locales like Antarctica, Africa, and Chitwan National Park in Nepal (where he was chased by an angry rhino), Yasso recommends the best marathons on foreign terrain and tells runners what they need to know to navigate the logistics of running in an unfamiliar country. He also offers practical guidance for beginning, intermediate, and advanced runners, such as 5-K, half marathon, and marathon training schedules, as well as advice on how to become a runner for life, ever-ready to draw joy from the sport and embrace the adventure that each race may offer
This volume is perfect for the armchair UFO enthusiast and budding scientist. This compilation of stories from leading scientists and UFO experts will pique any young person’s interest in the possibility that UFOs really exist. Included are accounts from the world’s leading experts on new evidence of famous sightings as well as the unearthing of famous classified files. Also, one leading nuclear physicist says how close we are to interstellar travel. For fans of The X-Files and Roswell conspiracies, this title will dispel any doubts about the existence of alien life.
Everything you always wanted to know about oil painting...but were afraid to ask. Or maybe you weren’t afraid—maybe you just didn’t know what to ask or where to start. In The Oil Painting Course You’ve Always Wanted, author Kathleen Staiger presents crystal clear, step-by-step lessons that build to reinforce learning. Brush control, creating the illusion of three dimensions, foolproof color mixing, still-life painting, landscapes, and portraits—every topic is covered in clear text, diagrams, illustrations, exercises, and demonstrations. Staiger has taught oil painting for more than thirty-five years; many of her students are now exhibiting and selling their paintings. Everyone from beginning hobby painters, to art students, to BFA graduates has questions about oil painting. Here at last are the answers!
Get the inside scoop on the best of the West with natives Kathleen and Gerald Hill. Taking visitors and locals alike to the hidden treasures of Monterey and Carmel, California, the Hills provide an intimate view of these exquisite seaside escapes -- their inestimable charm, their fine dining, and their colorful roles in American history.
From Hurricane Katrina to the Mississippi River floods of 1927 and 2011, and from a high temperature of 115 degrees Fahrenheit to a low of -19, Mississippi has seen its share of weather extremes. In fact, Mississippi's rainfall can be described in terms of "feast or famine." Even during the feast years, the rain may come at the wrong time for farmers to plant crops or in unwanted quantities. The Pearl River flood of 1979 is an example of too much rain falling over a short period of time with disastrous consequences. Mississippi Weather and Climate explores some of the reasons behind these extremes. The book begins with a look at the factors that shape Mississippi's climate and then moves into a discussion of normal weather conditions. Three chapters take a closer look at some of Mississippi's most dramatic weather. Historical events including the Candlestick Park tornado, Hurricanes Camille and Katrina, and the ice storms of 1994 and 1998 are described in more detail. The book details Mississippi's past climate as well as its projected climate and explores what the future may hold for residents of the state. Finally, the last two chapters reveal how the weather and climate affect people, from the way homes were built in Mississippi's early days and the types of plants that thrive or die here to the way weather information is collected and reported in the form of a local TV weather forecast. Mississippi Weather and Climate is a fascinating look at the science behind the weather and how natural events affect the people and land in the Magnolia State.
Daughter of the Palms by Kathleen Adair Hills are mountains to a child, teeth are tusks. Memories are such fickle things, and yet I cherish them, remembering not so much each tiny detail as the whole experience, the feeling, taste, aroma of those early childhood years in Africa—thus we are introduced to this wonderful new collection of short stories chronicling the author’s experience growing up in the great country of Sudan. The tales range from the tragedy of losing her “baby” sister to the dangers of being bitten by a poisonous sea creature to the raucous humor of young students at mission school.
Workers both in and out of the home, small business owners, federal and tribal government employees, and unemployed and underemployed Lakotas speak about how they cope with living in communities that are in many ways marginalized by the modern world economy. The work uses interviews with residents of the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservations.
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