California Crisis

Since 1980, the number of people in US prisons has increased more than 450 percent. Despite a crime rate that has been falling steadily for decades, California has led the way in this explosion, with what a state analyst called "the biggest prison building project in the history of the world". Golden Gulag provides the first detailed explanation for that buildup by looking at how political and economic forces conjoined to produce the prison boom.

In 2006, Matthew Specktor moved into a crumbling Los Angeles apartment opposite the one in which F. Scott Fitzgerald spent the last moments of his life. Fitz had been Specktor's first literary idol, someone whose own passage through Hollywood had, allegedly, broken him. Freshly divorced, professionally flailing, and reeling from his mother's cancer diagnosis, Specktor was feeling unmoored. But rather than giving in or "cracking up", he embarked on an obsessive journey to make sense of the mythologies of "success" and "failure" that haunt the artist's life and the American imagination.

Between 1846 and 1873, California's Indian population plunged from perhaps 150,000 to 30,000. Benjamin Madley is the first historian to uncover the full extent of the slaughter, the involvement of state and federal officials, the taxpayer dollars that supported the violence, indigenous resistance, who did the killing, and why the killings ended. This deeply researched book is a comprehensive and chilling history of an American genocide.

West Hollywood is Karina’s home, a place where a Russian werewolf can hide in plain sight. Unfortunately, it’s also the place where the werewolf hunters seek their prey. When Karina’s best friend, also a shape-shifter, is murdered, she teams up with Jack Hardy, a homicide detective, to work the case with him. While the case twists and turns, Karina can’t help but notice Jack is falling in love with her. But she can’t tell him her secret. Or can she? While she considers the consequences of such a love match, the murder takes an unexpected turn. And Karina soon learn Jack has a ...

Vinh Doan has a problem. Ten million of them, in fact. He’s a high-level fixer for global conglomerates, which means big money…and big troubles. When ten million dollars go missing from one of his accounts, he needs a top-notch hacker to find it. His first thought? Emily MacDonald, his high school ex. While Vinh has been taking the financial world by storm, Emily has been struggling. After her dad died, she dropped out of college and put her dreams aside. Her job in tech support has seriously tested her sunny disposition and her finances.

It is the midwinter of 1961-62, a decade and a half into the Cold War Though continents apart, the flashpoints of tension and political intrigue around the world have never been more intense. The stakes have never been higher. Berlin. Havana. Saigon. Moscow. Tel Aviv. Another world war could start in any of these places. Thomas Buchanan of the FBI has worked on special assignments for two US presidents, Truman and Eisenhower. He is not inclined to work for a third, their successor, John F. Kennedy. Buchanan has nothing against Kennedy, but is not necessarily a supporter, either. If anything...

Werewolf detective Karina opens her private investigation office and gets her first case. Vanya Rykov, the retired Alpha from her old pack, is arrested for the shooting death of a werewolf hunter, a man who has longtime connections to her own family. Now, it’s up to Karina to prove his innocence, but Vanya’s not talking. As she begins to investigate the murder, Jack Hardy, her boyfriend and a new werewolf who is rising into his full Alpha powers, gets a job that pits them against each other professionally. Jack’s job as a special investigator for the D.A.’s office means that it is ...

Karina gets her second paying case as a private investigator when Viktor Glazkov asks her to find his missing sister, Jenika. The latter came to Los Angeles as a Russian mail-order bride and then disappeared. Unfortunately, the jilted fiance is a rich man, and Karina doesn’t trust him, not one bit. Karina also assists her boyfriend, Jack, who works as a special investigator, on a murder case that begins with her translation of a handwritten document. Meanwhile, Ivan, the leader of the werewolf pack, is trying to get his werewolves ready to fight Karina’s diabolical uncle, Dmitri ...

The Parker family travels in an RV to the Golden State on vacation. After Dave, Katie, Jeremy, Denyse, and Katelyn enjoy Southern California’s glamorous attractions, the family separates at LA’s airport. Denyse takes her daughter, Katelyn, to visit her family in Australia. Jeremy returns to Mobile to manage the Parkers’ accounting firm. Dave and Katie meander north to experience more of California’s wonders.At a state park, Katie discovers two bodies—the victims of a prescription opioid overdose. A man is already dead. The other—a teenaged girl—barely survives. The small town ...