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Old bones [sound recording] / by Preston, Douglas J.,author.; Farrell, Cynthia,narrator.; Child, Lincoln,author.; Hachette Audio (Firm),publisher.;
Read by Cynthia Farrell.Nora Kelly, a young but successful curator with a series of important excavations already under her belt, is approached by the handsome historian, Guy Porter, to lead an expedition unlike any other. Guy tells his story--one involving the ill-fated Donner Party, who became permanently lodged in the American consciousness in the winter of 1847, when the first skeletonized survivors of the party stumbled out of the California mountains, replete with tales of courage, resourcefulness, bad luck, murder, barbarism--and, finally, starvation and cannibalism. Captivated by the Donner Party, Nora agrees and they venture into the Sierra Nevada in search of the camp. Quickly, they learn that the discovery of the missing starvation camp is just the tip of the iceberg--and that the real truth behind those long-dead pioneers is not only far more complex and surprising than they could have imagined ... but it is one that puts them both in mortal danger from a very real, present-day threat in which the search for the lost party, and its fabled fortune in gold, are merely means to a horrifying end.
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Audiobooks.; Donner Party; Archaeologists; Archaeological expeditions;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Four against the West : the true saga of a frontier family that reshaped the nation--and created a legend / by Pappalardo, Joe,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."A thrilling true saga of legendary Texas figure Judge Roy Bean and his brothers-and their violent adventures in Wild West America. Roy Bean was an American saloon-keeper and Justice of the Peace in Texas, who called himself "The Only Law West of the Pecos." He and his three brothers set out from Kentucky in the mid 1840s, heading into the American frontier to find their fortunes. Their lifetimes of triumphs, tragedies, laurels and scandals will play out on the battlefields of Mexico, in shady dealings in California city halls, inside eccentric saloon courtrooms of Texas, and along the blood-soaked Santa Fe Trail from Missouri to New Mexico. They will kill men, and murder will likewise stalk them. The Beans chase their American dreams as the nation reinvents itself as a coast-to-coast powerhouse, only to be tested by the Civil War. During their saga, the brothers become soldiers, judges, husbands, guerillas, lawmen, entrepreneurs, refugees, fathers, politicians, pioneers and-in Judge Roy Bean's case-one of the Old West's best known but least understood scoundrels. Using new information gleaned from exhaustive research, Four Against the West is an unprecedented and vivid telling of the intertwined stories of all four Bean brothers, exploring for the first time how their relentless ambitions helped create a new America"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Bean, Roy, -1903; Bean, Roy, -1903.; Bean family.; Brothers; Frontier and pioneer life; Outlaws; Soldiers;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Empty mansions : the mysterious life of Huguette Clark and the spending of a great American fortune / by Dedman, Bill.; Newell, Paul Clark,Jr.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."When Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bill Dedman noticed a property listing for a grand estate that had been unoccupied for nearly sixty years, he stumbled into one of the most surprising American stories of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Empty Mansions is a rich tale of wealth and loss, complete with copper barons, Gilded Age opulence, and backdoor politics. At its heart is a reclusive 104-year-old heiress named Huguette Clark. Dedman has collaborated with Huguette's cousin, Paul Clark Newell, Jr., one of the few relatives to have had frequent conversations with her, to tell a fairy tale in reverse: the bright, talented daughter who is born into an almost royal family of amazing wealth and privilege, yet who secrets herself away from the outside world. Empty Mansions reveals a complete picture of the enigmatic Huguette Clark, heiress to one of the greatest fortunes in American history, a woman who had not been photographed in public since the 1920s. Though she owned three palatial homes in California, New York, and Connecticut, they sat vacant while she lived out her final two decades in a New York City hospital room, despite being in excellent health. Her father was self-made copper industrialist W. A. Clark, who at the dawn of the twentieth century was one of the richest men in America. Huguette's inheritance afforded her untold luxury: gorgeous paintings by Degas and Renoir, a world-renowned Stradivarius violin, a vast collection of antique dolls, lavish gifts for her friends, the freedom to pursue her own work as an artist, and, most important, the privacy she valued above all else. The Clark family story takes the reader nearly the entire span of American history in just three generations. The same Huguette who held a ticket for the return trip of the Titanic was touched by the terror attacks of 9/11. In this scrupulously detailed account, we meet Huguette's extravagant father, her publicity-shy mother, her star-crossed sister, her noble French boyfriend, the nurse who received more than $30 million in gifts, and the relatives seeking to inherit Huguette's $300 million fortune. Richly illustrated with more than seventy photographs, some never before seen, Empty Mansions is a touching story of an eccentric of the highest order, a last jewel of the Gilded Age who lived life on her own terms"--Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Clark, Huguette, 1906-2011; Clark, Huguette, 1906-2011; Clark, Huguette, 1906-2011.; Clark, William Andrews, 1839-1925; Collectors and collecting; Eccentrics; Heiresses; Mansions; Recluses;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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A Murder in Hollywood The Untold Story of Tinseltown's Most Shocking Crime [electronic resource] : by Sherman, Casey.aut; cloudLibrary;
USA TODAY BESTSELLER "A wild ride beneath the glitz and glamour of 1950s Hollywood, proving once again that Casey Sherman is a master of the genre." —Ben Mezrich, New York Times bestselling author of Dumb Money, Bringing Down the House, and The Accidental Billionaires The dark story behind the bright lights of Tinseltown From the outside, Hollywood starlet Lana Turner seemed to have it all—a thriving film career, a beautiful daughter, and the kind of fame and fortune that most people could only dream of. But when the famous femme fatale began dating mobster Johnny Stompanato, thug for the infamous west coast mob boss Mickey Cohen, her personal life became violent and unpredictable. Lana's teenage daughter, Cheryl, watched her beloved mother's life deteriorate as Stompanato's intense jealousy took over. Eventually, the physical and emotional abuse became too much to bear, and Lana attempted to break it off with Johnny—with disastrous consequences. The details of what happened that fateful night remain foggy, but it ended in a series of frantic phone calls and Stompanato dead on Lana's bedroom floor, with Cheryl claiming to have plunged a knife into his abdomen in an attempt to protect her mother. The subsequent murder trial made for the biggest headlines of the year, its drama eclipsing every Hollywood movie. New York Times bestselling author Casey Sherman pulls back Tinseltown's velvet curtain to reveal the dark underbelly of celebrity, rife with toxic masculinity and casual violence against women, and tells the story of Lana Turner and her daughter, who finally stood up to the abuse that plagued their family for years. A Murder in Hollywood transports us back to the golden age of film and illuminates one of the 20th century's most notorious true crime tales.
Subjects: Electronic books.; Entertainment & Performing Arts; Murder;
© 2024., Sourcebooks,
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Lucky loser : how Donald Trump squandered his father's fortune and created the illusion of success / by Buettner, Russ,author.; Craig, Susanne,author.;
Includes bibliographical references (pages 457-500) and index."Soon after announcing his first campaign for the US presidency, Donald J. Trump [said] ... that life 'has not been easy for me. It has not been easy for me.' Building on a narrative he had been telling for decades, he spun a hardscrabble fable of how he parlayed a small loan from his father into a multi-billion-dollar business and real estate empire. This feat, he argued, made him singularly qualified to lead the country. Except: None of it was true. Born to a rich father who made him the beneficiary of his own highly lucrative investments, Trump received the equivalent of more than $500 million today via means that required no business expertise whatsoever. Drawing on over twenty years' worth of Trump's confidential tax information -- including the tax returns he tried to conceal -- alongside business records and interviews with Trump insiders, New York Times investigative reporters Russ Buettner and Susanne Craig track Trump's financial rise and fall, and rise and fall again. For decades, he squanders his fortunes on money-losing businesses, only to be saved yet again by financial serendipity. He tacks his name above the door of every building, while taking out huge loans he'll never repay. He obsesses over appearances, while ignoring threats to the bottom line and mounting costly lawsuits against city officials. He tarnishes the value of his name by allowing anyone with a big enough check to use it, and cheats the television producer who not only rescues him from bankruptcy but casts him as a business savant -- the public image that will carry him to the White House"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Trump, Donald, 1946-; Trump, Donald, 1946-; Trump, Donald, 1946-; Trump, Donald, 1946-; Trump family.; Trump Organization (New York, N.Y.); Businesspeople; Corporations; Fathers and sons; Presidents; Presidents; Wealth;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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When the heavens went on sale : the misfits and geniuses who put space within reach / by Vance, Ashlee,author.;
"With the launch of the Falcon 1 rocket in 2008, Elon Musk's SpaceX became the first private company to build a low-cost rocket that could reach orbit. And that milestone carried major implications: Silicon Valley, not NASA, was suddenly cemented as the epicenter of the new Space Age. Start-ups and the wealthy investors behind them began to realize that the universe--ungoverned and infinite--was open for business. Welcome to the wild west of aerospace engineering. When the Heavens Went on Sale tells the remarkable, unfolding story of this frenzied intergalactic land grab. Through his trademark immersive reporting, Ashlee Vance follows four pioneering companies--Astra, Firefly, Planet Labs, and Rocket Lab--as they build new space systems and attempt to launch rockets into orbit. While the public fixated on the space tourism being driven by Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson, these new companies arrived with a different set of goals: to make rocket and satellite launches fast and cheap, thereby opening Earth's lower orbit for business--and setting it up as the next playing field for humankind's technological evolution, where we can connect, analyze, and monitor everything on Earth. Vance has had a front row seat and singular access to this peculiar and unprecedented moment in history. When the Heavens Went on Sale travels through private company headquarters, labs, and top-secret launch locations around the world, including California, Texas, Alaska, New Zealand, Ukraine, India, and French Guiana. Vance chronicles it all in full color: the private jets, communes, gun-toting bodyguards, hallucinogens, espionage investigations, and multi-millionaires guzzling booze to dull the pain as their fortunes disappear. With the most detailed and intimate reporting of Vance's career, When the Heavens Went on Sale reveals the spectacular chaos of the new business of space, and what happens when the idealistic, ambitious minds of Silicon Valley turn their unbridled vision toward the limitless expanse of the stars. This is the most pressing and controversial technology story of our times, a tale of fascinating characters chasing unimaginable stakes as they race to space"--
Subjects: Privatization.; Rockets (Aeronautics); Space tourism.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Heiresses : the lives of the million dollar babies / by Thompson, Laura,1964-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."New York Times bestselling author Laura Thompson returns with Heiresses, a fascinating look at the lives of heiresses throughout history and the often tragic truth beneath the gilded surface. Heiresses: surely they are among the luckiest women on earth. Are they not to be envied, with their private jets and Chanel wardrobes and endless funds? Yet all too often those gilded lives have been beset with trauma and despair. Before the 20th century a wife's inheritance was the property of her husband, making her vulnerable to kidnap, forced marriages, even confinement in an asylum. And in modern times, heiresses fell victim to fortune-hunters who squandered their millions. Heiresses tells the stories of these women: Mary Davies, who inherited London's most valuable real estate, and was bartered from the age of twelve; Consuelo Vanderbilt, the original American "Dollar Heiress", forced into a loveless marriage; Barbara Hutton, the Woolworth heiress who married seven times and died almost penniless; Patty Hearst, heiress to a newspaper fortune who was arrested for terrorism. However, there are also stories of achievement: Angela Burdett-Coutts, who became one of the greatest philanthropists of Victorian England; Nancy Cunard, who lived off her mother's fortune and became a pioneer of the civil rights movement; Daisy Fellowes, elegant linchpin of interwar high society and noted fashion editor. Heiresses is about the lives of the rich, who-as F. Scott Fitzgerald said-are 'different'. But it is also a bigger story about how all women fought their way to equality, and sometimes even found autonomy and fulfilment"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Anecdotes.; Personal narratives.; Heiresses; Rich people; Upper class women; Women;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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City of secrets / by Thompson, Victoria(Victoria E.),author.;
"Con artist Elizabeth Miles has determined that Society is the biggest con of all. So far, Elizabeth's only real social success has been with Priscilla Knight. Priscilla is a dedicated suffragist who was recently widowed for the second time in her young life. Her beloved first husband, DeForrest Jenks, died in a tragic accident and left her with two young daughters and a comfortable fortune. Soon after his death, her pastor convinced her she needed a man to look after her. Before she knew it, he had engineered a whirlwind courtship and hasty marriage to fellow parishioner Endicott Knight. Less than nine months later, Endicott is also dead in a somewhat less tragic and even more suspicious accident. Priscilla confides to Elizabeth that she had understood Endicott was wealthy in his own right, and she had brought a sizeable fortune to the marriage as well. Now her banker is telling her she has hardly any money left and that her house has been mortgaged. The banker has hinted at a scandal that could damage the family's reputation and her daughters' future prospects. Fearing destructive gossip, Priscilla doesn't know whom to trust. Elizabeth discovers some unsavory evidence that seems to point to the possibility that Endicott's death may have been connected to blackmail. To save her new friend's future, Elizabeth must use her special set of skills to find the truth"--
Subjects: Detective and mystery fiction.; Historical fiction.; Swindlers and swindling;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Treasure state / by Box, C. J.,author.;
"The return of Cassie Dewell in Treasure State, the latest in the series that inspired the ABC hit series Big Sky, finds Cassie in Montana on the trail of a con man. Investigator Cassie Dewell--now the lead character in this year's most sensational TV crime show, Big Sky, from Big Little Lies creator David E. Kelley--is headed to Anaconda, Montana, in search of a slippery con man who has disappeared somewhere in the "treasure state". A wealthy California divorcee has accused him of absconding with her entire fortune, and wants Cassie to find him and get it back. But Anaconda, a quirky former copper mining town, is the perfect place to reinvent yourself, and as the case develops, Cassie begins to wonder if her client is telling her everything. Between searching for the con man and a second case, that of a rumored buried treasure somewhere in the vicinity that has led to a cutthroat competition among adventure-seeking treasure-hunters, Cassie has her hands full. C. J. Box's newest Cassie Dewell novel, the highly anticipated follow-up to The Bitterroots, is full of more twists and turns than the switchbacks through the Anaconda Range"--
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Novels.; Dewell, Cassie (Fictitious character); Missing persons; Serial murder investigation; Women private investigators;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 4
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Treasure state [sound recording] / by Box, C. J.,author.; Delaine, Christina,narrator.; Macmillan Audio (Firm),publisher.;
Read by Christina Delaine."The return of Cassie Dewell in Treasure State, the latest in the series that inspired the ABC hit series Big Sky, finds Cassie in Montana on the trail of a con man. Investigator Cassie Dewell--now the lead character in this year's most sensational TV crime show, Big Sky, from Big Little Lies creator David E. Kelley--is headed to Anaconda, Montana, in search of a slippery con man who has disappeared somewhere in the "treasure state". A wealthy California divorcee has accused him of absconding with her entire fortune, and wants Cassie to find him and get it back. But Anaconda, a quirky former copper mining town, is the perfect place to reinvent yourself, and as the case develops, Cassie begins to wonder if her client is telling her everything. Between searching for the con man and a second case, that of a rumored buried treasure somewhere in the vicinity that has led to a cutthroat competition among adventure-seeking treasure-hunters, Cassie has her hands full. C. J. Box's newest Cassie Dewell novel, the highly anticipated follow-up to The Bitterroots, is full of more twists and turns than the switchbacks through the Anaconda Range"--
Subjects: Audiobooks.; Novels.; Thrillers (Fiction); Dewell, Cassie (Fictitious character); Missing persons; Serial murder investigation; Women private investigators;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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