This suspenseful story will appeal to readers who enjoy hard-nosed investigative reporters such as Brad Parks's Carter Ross."—Library Journal STARRED review Meet Geneva Chase, veteran crime reporter: she's driven, tenacious, and on the losing end of the bottle. That is, until Geneva catches a break. Veteran reporter Geneva Chase is at the end of her professional rope. Battling alcoholism and bad choices, she's lost every major news job she's had; working at her hometown newspaper is her last chance to redeem herself—and now the paper's future is in doubt. And then she lands the story of a lifetime: Six nude bodies are found hacked to pieces in a Queen Anne mansion on the coast of Long Island Sound. The sensational headline is picked up by the metro papers, and Geneva is back in the game, using her reporter's nose to sniff out the secrets of Connecticut's rich and entitled citizens. As her grisly investigation leads her deeper into dangerous waters, her toxic affair with a married man and her inability to get sober threaten to undo everything she has worked so hard to achieve—and some people might be willing to kill if it means keeping their business out of the papers... This special First-in-a-Series edition includes: A New Introduction by the Author A Reading Group Guide A Conversation with the Author An Excerpt from Darkness Lane, the Next Geneva Chase Crime Reporter Mystery Geneva Chase Crime Reporter Mysteries in order by Thomas Kies Random Road Darkness Lane Graveyard Bay Shadow Hill
A project for a giant media center in Coral Gables is stalled because of opposition, led by the town's booksellers. So the TV evangelist behind the project sends a couple of killers and the booksellers die. John Deal of Miami, whose wife worked for one of the victims, takes it upon himself to bring them to justice. By the author of Deal to Die For.
Reluctant sleuth and Miami developer John Deal is the last of his kind - a builder who appreciates his craft. His friend Arch Dolan was the last of his kind, too, a Miami bookseller who sold books because he loved them. Now someone has killed him for it. And he's only the first body to fall. In quick succession the CEO of a huge bookstore chain and a local lawyer meet violent ends...and Deal starts finding connections. Still, it's not easy for Deal: his estranged wife Janice, is still emotionally and physically scarred from mishaps the last time Deal stepped into the path of the wrong people. But Janice was close to Arch and she's as eager to find the killer as her husband. Working together, they discover that Arch's sister, lately employed by a charismatic revivalist, has disappeared. With the clues pointing north, Deal and Janice set out on a journey to a distant and frigid climate, one that threatens to chill them out for good.
The fast-paced and gripping true account of the extraordinary construction and spectacular demise of the Key West Railroad—one of the greatest engineering feats ever undertaken, destroyed in one fell swoop by the strongest storm ever to hit U.S. shores. In 1904, the brilliant and driven entrepreneur Henry Flagler, partner to John D. Rockefeller, dreamed of a railway connecting the island of Key West to the Florida mainland, crossing a staggering 153 miles of open ocean—an engineering challenge beyond even that of the Panama Canal. Many considered the project impossible, but build it they did. The railroad stood as a magnificent achievement for more than twenty-two years, heralded as “the Eighth Wonder of the World,” until its total destruction in 1935's deadly storm of the century. In Last Train to Paradise, Standiford celebrates this crowning achievement of Gilded Age ambition, bringing to life a sweeping tale of the powerful forces of human ingenuity colliding with the even greater forces of nature’s wrath.
Done Deal is the first in the series featuring reluctant sleuth John Deal, a South Florida building contractor who has a penchant for stepping into the path of the wrong people. Here, Deal is struggling to rebuild the once formidable DealCo, a development company once headed by his flamboyant father Barton Deal - but little does he know that the piece of land upon which he plans to build a small apartment complex is coveted by a ruthless businessman intent on making a fortune off Major League Baseball's arrival in South Florida.
Its tough being a small-time hustler in Key West, FL. When this hustler is being beaten by a cop, John Deal steps in to stop it, but it is only a temporary rescue: the hustler turns up dead only two days later. The cops are claiming ignorance and the locals arent saying a word. Could the dead man be somehow connected to a seventy-year-old tale of piracy, murder, and greed? No one knows what really happened on that storm-swept night. But something about the legend and the recent murder are haunting John Deal to the bone.
In the fifth installment of the series, Deal is being awarded the Presidential Medal of Valor, and as a campaign gimmick, the presentation ceremony is held in Miami. During the ceremony, terrorists interrupt with machine gun fire, and Deal and the First Lady are taken captive.
Jaded transit cop Richard Corrigan didn't expect to find himself trekking through the Wyoming wilderness -- with the governor of New York no less. Corrigan can't understand why the governor is more concerned about his public image than his personal safety. And what's more disturbing is the danger that's lurking at every twist and turn in the rugged mountain trails.
A complete and well illustrated book detailing the story of Coral Gables. Archival photographs provide excellent historical detail about the City Beautiful.
Two founding fathers of American industry. One desire to dominate business at any price. “Masterful . . . Standiford has a way of making the 1890s resonate with a twenty-first-century audience.”—USA Today “The narrative is as absorbing as that of any good novel—and as difficult to put down.”—Miami Herald The author of Last Train to Paradise tells the riveting story of Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, and the bloody steelworkers’ strike that transformed their fabled partnership into a furious rivalry. Set against the backdrop of the Gilded Age, Meet You in Hell captures the majesty and danger of steel manufacturing, the rough-and-tumble of the business world, and the fraught relationship between “the world’s richest man” and the ruthless coke magnate to whom he entrusted his companies. The result is an extraordinary work of popular history. Praise for Meet You in Hell “To the list of the signal relationships of American history . . . we can add one more: Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick . . . The tale is deftly set out by Les Standiford.”—Wall Street Journal “Standiford tells the story with the skills of a novelist . . . a colloquial style that is mindful of William Manchester’s great The Glory and the Dream.”—Pittsburgh Tribune-Review “A muscular, enthralling read that takes you back to a time when two titans of industry clashed in a battle of wills and egos that had seismic ramifications not only for themselves but for anyone living in the United States, then and now.”—Dennis Lehane, author of Mystic River
From the first Gilded Age to the second, a “charming, zippy history . . . a rollicking, informative lesson in real estate, American history, and current events.” —Town & Country Looking at the island of Palm Beach today, with its unmatched mansions, tony shops, and pristine beaches, one is hard pressed to visualize the dense tangle of Palmetto brush and mangroves that it was when visionary entrepreneur and railroad tycoon Henry Flagler first arrived there in April 1893. Trusting his remarkable instincts, he built the Royal Poinciana Hotel within a year, and two years later, what was to become the legendary Breakers—instantly establishing the island as the preferred destination for those who could afford it. Over the next 125 years, Palm Beach has become synonymous with exclusivity—especially its most famous residence, Mar-a-Lago. As Les Standiford relates, the high walls of Mar-a-Lago and other manses like it were seemingly designed to contain scandal within as much as keep intruders out. This book tells the history of this fabled landscape intertwined with the colorful lives of its famous and infamous protagonists, from Flagler’s two wives to architect Addison Mizner, who created Palm Beach’s “Mediterranean look” to heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post and her husband E. F. Hutton, the original residents of Mar-a-Lago. With authoritative detail, Standiford recounts how Marjorie ruled Palm Beach society until her death in 1973, and how the fate of her mansion threatened to tear apart the very fabric of the town until Donald Trump acquired it in 1985. “Edifying, energetic, and captivating.” —Florida Weekly
John Deal has spent much of his adult life trying to rebuild the Miami construction firm that his late father ruined. When the possibility of a major project in post-normalized Cuba arises, he cant help but be intrigued. But Deal quickly learns that hes been lured to Havana for another, more dangerous purpose: to help a freedom-fighting group spring an American prisoner from a Castro jail. Of course, Deal wants nothing to do with ituntil he discovers who the prisoner is. That prisoner is also the holder of secrets, highly sensitive information that Deals own government thinks worth killing for. The next chapter in the edge-of-your-seat John Deal series.
Struggling to revitalize the Miami building firm that his late father had ruined, John Deal is delighted when he receives the contract on a major construction project, only to discover that his contract comes with strings attached--the government agency for whom his late father had worked secretly wants Deal to take his place. By the author of Black Mountain. Reprint.
The author of Last Train to Paradise tells the story of the largest public water project ever created—William Mulholland’s Los Angeles aqueduct—a story of Gilded Age ambition, hubris, greed, and one determined man who's vision shaped the future and continues to impact us today. In 1907, Irish immigrant William Mulholland conceived and built one of the greatest civil engineering feats in history: the aqueduct that carried water 223 miles from the Sierra Nevada mountains to Los Angeles—allowing this small, resource-challenged desert city to grow into a modern global metropolis. Drawing on new research, Les Standiford vividly captures the larger-then-life engineer and the breathtaking scope of his six-year, $23 million project that would transform a region, a state, and a nation at the dawn of its greatest century. With energy and colorful detail, Water to the Angels brings to life the personalities, politics, and power—including bribery, deception, force, and bicoastal financial warfare—behind this dramatic event. At a time when the importance of water is being recognized as never before—considered by many experts to be the essential resource of the twenty-first century—Water to the Angels brings into focus the vigor of a fabled era, the might of a larger than life individual, and the scale of a priceless construction project, and sheds critical light on a past that offers insights for our future. Water to the Angels includes 8 pages of photographs.
Discover how one spectacular building project revolutionized Miami, how one man's moxie helped turn a fractious tropical city into a cultural capital of the Americas. In Center of Dreams, New York Times bestselling author Les Standiford tells the inspiring story of the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. The vision for this building, which would become the most ambitious cultural arts complex since the Kennedy Center, began in an unlikely place and time. Miami in the 1970s was divided by social and ethnic tensions. The city comprised a growing population of immigrants from the Cuban revolution, a well-established African American community, Florida "crackers," and a continual influx of tourists and retirees. Critics said a cultural center would never be possible in a place of such extreme diversity. But Parker Thomson, a lawyer and Boston transplant, knew his adopted city could become a world-leading community in the twenty-first century. He believed a performing arts center was critical to this vision. Everyone said his dream was impossible, he would never succeed, it couldn't be done. Not in Miami. But Thomson persevered against political opposition, economic roadblocks, and engineering problems. It took thirty years to overcome the odds and the obstacles, but he finally made the dream a reality. With Thomson's efforts, along with help from cultural leaders, iconic design work by architect Cesar Pelli, and support from philanthropist Adrienne Arsht, the center opened its doors in 2006 with a star-studded gala. Today the Arsht Center is a cutting-edge venue of style and art, a landmark beloved by the city's residents, and a magnet for tourists from all over the world. Presenting performances that celebrate the richness of Miami's diverse population, it showcases emerging local artists and attracts international stars. Resident companies include the New World Symphony, the Florida Grand Opera, and the Miami City Ballet. Its improbable story is a testament to the influence of cultural advocacy, the importance of government support for the arts, and the power of the arts to repair and sustain communities.
After turning down a suspicious offer for a piece of Miami real estate he's developing, John Deal learns that his pregnant wife has disappeared and her car run off the road
“Popular history in its most vital and accessible form. Standiford has recovered the mentality of America’s first group of young radicals, the Sons of Liberty, and tells their story with flair and grace.” —Joseph J. Ellis, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Founding Brothers Les Standiford’s Last Train to Paradise, the fascinating true account of the building of a railroad “across the ocean” from Miami to Key West, is already a classic of popular history. With Desperate Sons, the New York Times bestselling author of Bringing Adam Home tells the remarkable story of America’s first patriots, the Sons of Liberty, whose revolutionary acts have become legend. With all the suspense and power of a historical action thriller, Standiford’s Desperate Sons recounts the courage and tenacity of a hardy group that included Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, and John Hancock—radical activists who were responsible for some of the most notorious events leading up to the American Revolution, from the Boston Tea Party to Paul Revere’s fabled midnight ride. Fans of David McCullough’s John Adams and 1776 will be riveted by this true history of young men inflamed by the fires of common purpose who helped a new nation to rise up against its British oppressor.
As uplifting as the tale of Scrooge itself, this is the story of how Charles Dickens revived the signal holiday of the Western world—now a major motion picture. Just before Christmas in 1843, a debt-ridden and dispirited Charles Dickens wrote a small book he hoped would keep his creditors at bay. His publisher turned it down, so Dickens used what little money he had to put out A Christmas Carol himself. He worried it might be the end of his career as a novelist. The book immediately caused a sensation. And it breathed new life into a holiday that had fallen into disfavor, undermined by lingering Puritanism and the cold modernity of the Industrial Revolution. It was a harsh and dreary age, in desperate need of spiritual renewal, ready to embrace a book that ended with blessings for one and all. With warmth, wit, and an infusion of Christmas cheer, Les Standiford whisks us back to Victorian England, its most beloved storyteller, and the birth of the Christmas we know best. The Man Who Invented Christmas is a rich and satisfying read for Scrooges and sentimentalists alike.
“Les Standiford’s account of the decades-long attempt to solve the murder of Adam Walsh is chilling, heartbreaking, hopeful, and as relentlessly suspenseful as anything I’ve ever read. A triumph in every way.” —Dennis Lehane, author of Mystic River “The most significant missing child case since the Lindbergh’s….A taut, compelling and often touching book about a long march to justice.” —Scott Turow, author of Presumed Innocent The abduction that changed America forever, the 1981 kidnapping and murder of six-year-old Adam Walsh—son of John Walsh, host of the Fox TV series America’s Most Wanted—in Hollywood, Florida, was a crime that went unsolved for a quarter of a century. Bringing Adam Home by author Les Standiford is a harrowing account of the terrible crime and its dramatic consequences, the emotional story of a father and mother’s efforts to seek justice and resolve the loss of their child, and a compelling portrait of Miami Beach Homicide Detective Joe Matthews, whose unwavering dedication brought the Adam Walsh case to its resolution.
Done Deal is the first in the series featuring reluctant sleuth John Deal, a South Florida building contractor who has a penchant for stepping into the path of the wrong people. Here, Deal is struggling to rebuild the once formidable DealCo, a development company once headed by his flamboyant father Barton Deal--but little does he know that the piece of land upon which he plans to build a small apartment complex is coveted by a ruthless businessman intent on making a fortune off Major League Baseball's arrival in South Florida.
“Les Standiford takes us under the big top and behind the curtain in this richly researched and thoroughly engaging narrative that captures all of the entrepreneurial intrigue and spirit of the American circus.” —Gilbert King, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Devil in the Grove Millions have sat under the “big top,” watching as trapeze artists glide and clowns entertain, but few know the captivating stories behind the men whose creativity, ingenuity, and determination created one of our country’s most beloved pastimes. In Battle for the Big Top, New York Times–bestselling author Les Standiford brings to life a remarkable era when three circus kings—James Bailey, P. T. Barnum, and John Ringling—all vied for control of the vastly profitable and influential American Circus. Ultimately, the rivalry of these three men resulted in the creation of an institution that would surpass all intentions and, for 147 years, hold a nation spellbound. Filled with details of their ever-evolving showmanship, business acumen, and personal magnetism, this Ragtime-like narrative will delight and enchant circus-lovers and anyone fascinated by the American experience.
John Deal's life is finally coming together--he is reunited with his lovely wife, they have a beautiful baby, and DealCo, his Miami construction business, is booming with post-Hurricane Andrew contracts rolling in. The future looks bright...until the night that his house is engulfed by an arsonist's flames and his wife is terribly burned.Unbeknownst to him, Deal has stumbled into the path of the sickly sweet plans of sugar cane magnate and Cuban imigri power broker, Vicente Luis Torreno, a man obsessed by his dreams of a repatriated Cuba and the juicy profits of the sugar monopoly he is sure will come with it. Torreno's sugar-coated influence reaches to the highest levels of the U.S. Government, a fact that more than complicates Deal's efforts to find out who is responsible for this latest tragedy and to avoid joining the string of bodies that litter the South Florida landscape, all the way from the vast cane fields of Lake Okeechobee to the shores of Biscayne Bay.
Unveiling the true essence of the City of Dreams, award-winning photographer Alan S. Maltz has captured the essence of Miami, and from South Beach to the Everglades. The book was warded the Certificate of Honor--Best Armchair Travel Book by the Mid American Publishers Association. 275 photos.
In the fifth installment of the series, Deal is being awarded the Presidential Medal of Valor, and as a campaign gimmick, the presentation ceremony is held in Miami. During the ceremony, terrorists interrupt with machine gun fire, and Deal and the First Lady are taken captive.
Washington burning transports us in time to the very foundig of our nation and its capital. We learn that the Washington we know might never have come to be had it not been for the destruction of the young city by British troops in 1814, or for Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the eccentric, passionate, difficult architect who fell in love with his adopted country. L'Enfant's sweeping vision of a grand Federal City inspired President George Washington but earned the enmity of Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, who hated the idea of an imperial city. So was the capital born of feuding personalities, and located on the banks of the Potomac only after great political struggle.
Standiford examines how the unlikely success of "A Christmas Carol" revitalized Charles Dickens's languishing career and revived the celebration of the near-forgotten Christmas holiday.
When a downtrodden baseball team owner discovers his groundskeeper was once a star in the Negro Leagues, a scheme is hatched--with an outcome that no one predicts.
This suspenseful third John Deal crime thriller from Standiford finds the Miami building contractor tangling with Chinese gangsters who are trying to move in on a scheme hatched by two Hollywood porno magnates to create X-rated films for the huge mainland Chinese market. Deal already has troubles enough?his wife, Janice, has sunk into a deep depression over the serious burns she suffered in last year's Raw Deal, and a close friend has apparently committed suicide, shortly after she has told her film-star sister, Paige Nobleman, that Paige was adopted. Deal and his tenant/pal, ex-cop Vernon Driscoll, begin investigating Paige's birth and, eventually, the friend's death, following leads that take them directly into the porno scheme and the path of some deadly Chinese gang members. Standiford, an unusually fine thriller writer who has won the Frank O'Connor Award for Short Fiction and who directs the creative writing program at Florida International University, is at the top of his game here, displaying excellent pacing and a particular affinity for action scenes. The ongoing saga of John Deal remains especially intriguing above all, however, because its author drenches each volume in the ambiguities?sometimes rewarding, sometimes nightmarish?of real life.
Its tough being a small-time hustler in Key West, FL. When this hustler is being beaten by a cop, John Deal steps in to stop it, but it is only a temporary rescue: the hustler turns up dead only two days later. The cops are claiming ignorance and the locals arent saying a word. Could the dead man be somehow connected to a seventy-year-old tale of piracy, murder, and greed? No one knows what really happened on that storm-swept night. But something about the legend and the recent murder are haunting John Deal to the bone.
John Deal has spent much of his adult life trying to rebuild the Miami construction firm that his late father ruined. When the possibility of a major project in post-normalized Cuba arises, he cant help but be intrigued. But Deal quickly learns that hes been lured to Havana for another, more dangerous purpose: to help a freedom-fighting group spring an American prisoner from a Castro jail. Of course, Deal wants nothing to do with ituntil he discovers who the prisoner is. That prisoner is also the holder of secrets, highly sensitive information that Deals own government thinks worth killing for. The next chapter in the edge-of-your-seat John Deal series.
In the fifth installment of the series, Deal is being awarded the Presidential Medal of Valor, and as a campaign gimmick, the presentation ceremony is held in Miami. During the ceremony, terrorists interrupt with machine gun fire, and Deal and the First Lady are taken captive.
The fast-paced and gripping true account of the extraordinary construction and spectacular demise of the Key West Railroad—one of the greatest engineering feats ever undertaken, destroyed in one fell swoop by the strongest storm ever to hit U.S. shores. In 1904, the brilliant and driven entrepreneur Henry Flagler, partner to John D. Rockefeller, dreamed of a railway connecting the island of Key West to the Florida mainland, crossing a staggering 153 miles of open ocean—an engineering challenge beyond even that of the Panama Canal. Many considered the project impossible, but build it they did. The railroad stood as a magnificent achievement for more than twenty-two years, heralded as “the Eighth Wonder of the World,” until its total destruction in 1935's deadly storm of the century. In Last Train to Paradise, Standiford celebrates this crowning achievement of Gilded Age ambition, bringing to life a sweeping tale of the powerful forces of human ingenuity colliding with the even greater forces of nature’s wrath.
Standiford examines how the unlikely success of "A Christmas Carol" revitalized Charles Dickens's languishing career and revived the celebration of the near-forgotten Christmas holiday.
Discover how one spectacular building project revolutionized Miami, how one man's moxie helped turn a fractious tropical city into a cultural capital of the Americas. In Center of Dreams, New York Times bestselling author Les Standiford tells the inspiring story of the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. The vision for this building, which would become the most ambitious cultural arts complex since the Kennedy Center, began in an unlikely place and time. Miami in the 1970s was divided by social and ethnic tensions. The city comprised a growing population of immigrants from the Cuban revolution, a well-established African American community, Florida "crackers," and a continual influx of tourists and retirees. Critics said a cultural center would never be possible in a place of such extreme diversity. But Parker Thomson, a lawyer and Boston transplant, knew his adopted city could become a world-leading community in the twenty-first century. He believed a performing arts center was critical to this vision. Everyone said his dream was impossible, he would never succeed, it couldn't be done. Not in Miami. But Thomson persevered against political opposition, economic roadblocks, and engineering problems. It took thirty years to overcome the odds and the obstacles, but he finally made the dream a reality. With Thomson's efforts, along with help from cultural leaders, iconic design work by architect Cesar Pelli, and support from philanthropist Adrienne Arsht, the center opened its doors in 2006 with a star-studded gala. Today the Arsht Center is a cutting-edge venue of style and art, a landmark beloved by the city's residents, and a magnet for tourists from all over the world. Presenting performances that celebrate the richness of Miami's diverse population, it showcases emerging local artists and attracts international stars. Resident companies include the New World Symphony, the Florida Grand Opera, and the Miami City Ballet. Its improbable story is a testament to the influence of cultural advocacy, the importance of government support for the arts, and the power of the arts to repair and sustain communities.
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