Now in paperback! *Awarded honors in nonfiction by the Massachusetts Book Award. *A riveting true story of murder, captivity, revenge, and escape Told with narrative skill and exquisite historical detail Massacre on the Merrimack examines a dark period in America's past and the bloody deeds of Hannah Duston, who escaped her Native American captors and returned to her settlement of Haverhill, Massachusetts, with a collection of scalps. Jay Atkinson is the author of eight books. He has written for the New York Times, Boston Globe, Newsday, Men's Health, and Boston Globe magazine. He lives in Methuen, Massachusetts.

On April 1, 1931, newspapers in all parts of the country announced in giant headlines that Knute Rockne had died in a plane crash in Kansas. Who was Rockne, age forty-three, to receive all this attention? As head coach of the Notre Dame football team, he was a celebrity whose face and voice were familiar to millions through magazines, newspapers, and radio. At Notre Dame, he himself had been a great football player. After graduation, he remained to teach chemistry and coach track and football. At thirty, he was named head football coach for the Fighting Irish, and over the next thirteen years, his team went undefeated five times. Rockne coached stars such as George Gipp, one of the most talented men ever to play the game, and the "Four Horsemen," the most famous backfield in football history. He raised the status of the coaching profession and helped develop Notre Dame's nationwide following of millions of Irish and other Catholics, many of whom had never even entered a college classroom. In "Rockne" Jerry Brondfield has recaptured the magnetism that made Rockne great. In this dramatic and peculiarly American story, he shows how a Norwegian immigrant could gain lasting fame as the coach of an American game at a university founded by Frenchmen and associated with the Irish.

""At McCain Investigations, I'd be sent looking for people who didn't want to be found, following guys who didn't want to be followed, and entering neighborhoods where I was not at all welcome. There would be no commercials, no time-outs, no 'do-overs' if somebody got shot or stabbed or run over. These guys were playing for keeps."
Seasoned journalist and adventurer Jay Atkinson spent a year working as a rookie private eye for the storied firm McCain Investigations, founded by the late Joe McCain, Sr., one of the most decorated police officers in Boston history. In his colorful narrative style, Atkinson describes some of the cases he worked as a detective, chasing down an assortment of felons, thieves, and con artists, as well as the ghost of a real-life American hero, legendary cop Joe McCain.
Atkinson traces McCain's story from the day he put on his Boston Metropolitan Police uniform in the 1950s through the heyday of his run-ins with mafiosi, bad cops, and ruthless killers. Big Joe was the genuine article, a detective so committed to his work that a gunshot wound suffered in the line of duty took thirteen years to kill him. McCain pursued such infamous Winter Hill mobsters as Stephen "the Rifleman" Flemmi and the murderous James "Whitey" Bulger, who remains on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list. Here Atkinson reveals new details--based on his exclusive interviews and an abundance of his own shoe leather--about how Bulger, one of America's most notorious fugitives, came within inches of being apprehended during Joe McCain's reign.
Atkinson also tracks the career of Joe McCain's son, Joe Jr., a tattooed, hard-riding motorcycle fanatic who followed his old man onto the force.Since big Joe's death, young Joe has learned the hard way that a father's mythic persona can be both a blessing and a curse, as a fellow cop with a grudge against Joe Sr. may be out to ruin young Joe's career. Atkinson delves into this dark and dangerous aspect of "the job," where it's uncertain which side some cops are on.
"Legends of Winter Hill takes you into an alluring and gritty world where heroes go unsung every day, and moral boundaries aren't always black and white.

"From the Hardcover edition.