Sept. 20, 2019: 'Death of a Rainmaker' by Laurie Loewenstein

April is hosting and the book she selected is "Death of a Rainmaker" by Laurie Loewenstein. A summary from Amazon.com:

"The murder investigation allows Loewenstein to probe into the lives of proud people who would never expose their troubles to strangers. People like John Hodge, the town's most respected lawyer, who knocks his wife around, and kindhearted Etha Jennings, who surreptitiously delivers home-cooked meals to the hobo camp outside town because one of the young Civilian Conservation Corps workers reminds her of her dead son. Loewenstein's sensitive treatment of these dark days in the Dust Bowl era offers little humor but a whole lot of compassion."

Some reviews:

"This striking historical mystery...is brooding and gritty and graced with authenticity."
--NPR, A Best Book of 2018

"The Depression and a 240-day-long dry spell drive the desperate townspeople of Vermillion, OK, to hire a rainmaker, but he's murdered, leaving sheriff Temple Jennings to investigate. Loewenstein's terrific historical mystery wears its history lightly and its humanity beautifully. The first in a series, it's a realistic, expertly drawn novel with characters you'll come to love."
--Library Journal, A Best Book of 2018

NEW DATE/TIME: Sunday, Aug.4, 2019, 6 p.m.: 'The Kitchen House' by Kathleen Grissom

As you know, we take a break in June and July. We reconvene at Kris' house on August 9 to read "The Kitchen House" by Kathleen Grissom. Here's a synopsis from Amazon.com:

Orphaned while onboard ship from Ireland, seven-year-old Lavinia arrives on the steps of a tobacco plantation where she is to live and work with the slaves of the kitchen house. Under the care of Belle, the master's illegitimate daughter, Lavinia becomes deeply bonded to her adopted family, though she is set apart from them by her white skin. Eventually, Lavinia is accepted into the world of the big house, where the master is absent and the mistress battles opium addiction. Lavinia finds herself perilously straddling two very different worlds. When she is forced to make a choice, loyalties are brought into question, dangerous truths are laid bare, and lives are put at risk. The Kitchen House is a tragic story of page-turning suspense, exploring the meaning of family, where love and loyalty prevail.

This book is available from Amazon as a printed book or Kindle here.

This book is available from Amazon's Audible.com audiobook here.

February 22, 2019, Book: 'Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America's Most Powerful Mobster' by Stephen L. Carter

Brent is hosting February 22 and he has chosen "Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America's Most Powerful Mobster" by Stephen L. Carter. From Amazon.com:

She was black and a woman and a prosecutor, a graduate of Smith College and the granddaughter of slaves, as dazzlingly unlikely a combination as one could imagine in New York of the 1930s―and without the strategy she devised, Lucky Luciano, the most powerful Mafia boss in history, would never have been convicted. When special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey selected twenty lawyers to help him clean up the city’s underworld, she was the only member of his team who was not a white male.

Eunice Hunton Carter, Stephen Carter’s grandmother, was raised in a world of stultifying expectations about race and gender, yet by the 1940s, her professional and political successes had made her one of the most famous black women in America. But her triumphs were shadowed by prejudice and tragedy. Greatly complicating her rise was her difficult relationship with her younger brother, Alphaeus, an avowed Communist who―together with his friend Dashiell Hammett―would go to prison during the McCarthy era. Yet she remained unbowed.

“A vivid portrait of a remarkable woman.”―Kirkus Reviews

“With artful storytelling and a narrative-like delivery, Carter tells Eunice's story in the best way possible, offering a compelling, unputdownable read with as much value in social history as legal appeal. Not to be missed.”―Library Journal (starred review)