Visitors gazing out over the Highlands of coastal New Jersey might never guess that these rolling hills have been a stage for mankind s darkest deeds. In his thrilling new book, "Murder & Mayhem in the Highlands," John King shines a spotlight on the region s violent history of kidnapping, murder, smuggling and extortion. From axe-wielding lunatics to killers who leave calling cards, King presents each case with the care of a criminal investigator, including details from coroners reports and witness testimonies.

In this sensational and gripping read, uncover the gritty history of the Highlands, where a suspicious death usually meant foul play and staying in a hotel might cost you your life.

These 'First Families' of Old Charleston- and others- are Lowcountry legends in their own right. Margaret Middleton Rivers Eastman takes readers behind parlor doors on a journey from the patrician historical area south of Broad Street to the luxurious Sea Island plantations in an unusual collection of treasured family traditions that span the colony's founding to the mid-twentieth century.

Mount Pleasant--Samuel P. Brown must have thought the name perfect when he chose it for his country estate on a wooded hill overlooking Washington City. The name also suited the New Englanders who settled in the village that Brown founded near Fourteenth Street and Park Road just after the Civil War. Around 1900, the once-isolated village began its transformation into a fashionable suburb after the city extended Sixteenth Street through Mount Pleasant's heart, and a new streetcar line linked the area to downtown. Developers constructed elegant apartment buildings and spacious brick row houses on block after block, and successful businessmen built stately residences along Park Road. Change arrived again with the Great Depression and then World War II, as the suburb evolved into an urban, exclusively white, working-class enclave that eventually became mostly African American. In addition, a Latino presence was evident as early as the 1960s. By the 1980s, the neighborhood was known as the heart of D.C.'s Latino and counterculture communities. Today these communities are dispersing, however, in response to a booming real estate market in Washington, D.C.

In January 1969, one of the most promising young lieutenant colonels the U.S. Army had ever seen touched down in Vietnam for his second tour of duty, which would turn out to be his most daring and legendary. David H. Hackworth had just completed the writing of a tactical handbook for the Pentagon, and now he had been ordered to put his counterguerilla-fighting theories into action. He was given the morale-drained 4/39th -- a battalion of poorly led draftees suffering the Army's highest casualty rate and considered its worst fighting battalion. Hackworth's hard-nosed, inventive and inspired leadership quickly turned the 4/39th into Vietnam's valiant and ferocious Hardcore Recondos.

Drawing on interviews with soldiers from the Hardcore Battalion conducted over the past decade by his partner and coauthor, Eilhys England, Hackworth takes readers along on their sniper missions, ambush actions, helicopter strikes and inside the quagmire of command politics. With Steel My Soldiers' Hearts, Hackworth places the brotherhood of the 4/39th into the pantheon of our nation's most heroic warriors.

A riveting, minute-by-minute account of the momentous event that changed our world forever

On a quiet Monday morning in August 1945, a five-ton bomb--dubbed Little Boy by its creators--was dropped from an American plane onto the Japanese city of Hiroshima. On that day, a firestorm of previously unimagined power was unleashed on a vibrant metropolis of 300,000 people, leaving one third of its population dead, its buildings and landmarks incinerated. It was the terrifying dawn of the Atomic Age, spawning decades of paranoia, mistrust, and a widespread and very real fear of the potential annihilation of the human race.

Author Stephen Walker brilliantly re-creates the three terrible weeks leading up to the wartime detonation of the atomic bomb--from the first successful test in the New Mexico desert to the cataclysm and its aftermath--presenting the story through the eyes of pilots, scientists, civilian victims, and world leaders who stood at the center of earth-shattering drama. It is a startling, moving, frightening, and remarkable portrait of an extraordinary event--a shockwave whose repercussions can be felt to this very day.

An explosive, long-forgotten story of police violence that exposes the historical roots of today's criminal justice crisis A deeply researched and propulsively written story of corrupt governance, police brutality, Black resistance, and violent white reaction in turn-of-the-century New Orleans that holds up a dark mirror to our own times.--Walter Johnson, author of River of Dark Dreams On a steamy Monday evening in 1900, New Orleans police officers confronted a black man named Robert Charles as he sat on a doorstep in a working-class neighborhood where racial tensions were running high. What happened next would trigger the largest manhunt in the city's history, while white mobs took to the streets, attacking and murdering innocent black residents during three days of bloody rioting. Finally cornered, Charles exchanged gunfire with the police in a spectacular gun battle witnessed by thousands. Building outwards from these dramatic events, To Poison a Nation connects one city's troubled past to the modern crisis of white supremacy and police brutality. Historian Andrew Baker immerses readers in a boisterous world of disgruntled laborers, crooked machine bosses, scheming businessmen, and the black radical who tossed a flaming torch into the powder keg. Baker recreates a city that was home to the nation's largest African American community, a place where racial antagonism was hardly a foregone conclusion--but which ultimately became the crucible of a novel form of racialized violence: modern policing. A major new work of history, To Poison a Nation reveals disturbing connections between the Jim Crow past and police violence in our own times.

On October 19, 1781, General Cornwallis surrendered his British army to the combined American and French forces at Yorktown, Virginia. In addition to ending hostilities, this act represented the close of British colonial rule and the dawn of America's ascent as an independent country and eventual world power. The events of this revolutionary time were the foundation of a growing American identity, and tributes to the sacrifices and victories of these early patriots continue even today. Yorktown, Virginia, has been celebrating the surrender of the British in large, nationally renowned celebrations since its first anniversary. Local author Kathleen Manley chronicles the history of Yorktown and the victory celebrations that have been undertaken through the generations to remember this historic time in America's infancy.

Chicago has long been regarded as home to some of the world's most impressive architecture. Responding to the Great Fire of 1871, Chicagoans rebuilt the city, creating a radically new architectural style. Chicago continued to grow and evolve through the 20th century, but many of its architectural masterpieces have been lost, some to modernization, and others simply to the ravages of time. Forgotten Chicago preserves the unique story of many of Chicago's famed architectural wonders. Included are the old Northwestern Train station, the Coliseum, the Chicago Stadium, old Comiskey Park, and Soldier Field. Many of the smaller treasures of the city will also be found here, including some of Chicago's most famous diners.

To celebrate the millionth copy sold of Howard Zinn's great People's History of the United States, Zinn drew on the words of Americans -- some famous, some little known -- across the range of American history. These words were read by a remarkable cast at an event held at the 92nd Street YMHA in New York City that included James Earl Jones, Alice Walker, Jeff Zinn, Kurt Vonnegut, Alfre Woodard, Marisa Tomei, Danny Glover, Myla Pitt, Harris Yulin, and Andre Gregory.

From that celebration, this book was born. Collected here under one cover is a brief history of America told through dramatic readings applauding the enduring spirit of dissent.

Here in their own words, and interwoven with commentary by Zinn, are Columbus on the Arawaks; Plough Jogger, a farmer and participant in Shays' Rebellion; Harriet Hanson, a Lowell mill worker; Frederick Douglass; Mark Twain; Mother Jones; Emma Goldman; Helen Keller; Eugene V. Debs; Langston Hughes; Genova Johnson Dollinger on a sit-down strike at General Motors in Flint, Michigan; an interrogation from a 1953 HUAC hearing; Fannie Lou Hamer, a sharecropper and member of the Freedom Democratic Party; Malcolm X; and James Lawrence Harrington, a Gulf War resister, among others.

On May 24, 1911, one of the most notorious murders in Denver's history occurred. The riveting tale involves high society, adultery, drugs, multiple murder, and more, all set in Denver's grand old hotel, the Brown Palace. As foreword writer and historian Tom Noel proclaims, "Hollywood murder mystery writers could not have contrived a thriller as chilling as this factual account." The characters in this real-life melodrama could not have been better cast. At the center of the storm was the seductively beautiful Denver socialite, Isabel Springer. In her thrall were three men--two locked in a struggle for her affections, and the third her unsuspecting husband. Little did ambitious John W. Springer, wealthy Denver businessman and politician, know that lovely Isabel, 20 years his junior, had been feeding the romantic fire of an out-of-town suitor at the same time that she was developing a cozy relationship with a man he regarded a friend and business partner. Threat and counter-threat between one-time cowboy and automobile racing driver Sylvester Louis ("Tony") von Phul and the dapper Harold Francis Henwood culminated in a barroom confrontation and a double gunshot murder. What followed were two of the most lurid court trials in Colorado history. This tragic story of a spectacular crime of passion and how it ruined the lives of those involved is one readers won't be able to put down.