Adult

Part One of this story takes place in 1947. A troubled soldier, returning from the war, meets his talented five-year-old nephew and then disappears for 23 years. Cut to 1970: The nephew, now drawing underground comic books, reconnects with his uncle and --- remembering the comic book he saw when he was five --- draws a new version with his uncle as a World War II fighting hero. Cut to the present day: A commercially successful director discovers the 1970 comic book and decides to turn it into a contemporary superhero movie. Cue the cast: We meet the film’s extremely difficult male star, his wonderful leading lady, the eccentric writer/director, the producer, the gofer production assistant, and everyone else on both sides of the camera.

Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE --- or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment --- a highly popular, highly controversial, profit-raising program in America’s increasingly dominant private prison industry. It’s the return of the gladiators, and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom. In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death-matches for packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches. As she prepares to leave her fellow Links, she considers how she might help preserve their humanity, in defiance of these so-called games.

While reporting on a Tijuana animal shelter, journalist Bettina Blazak falls in love with one of her story’s subjects --- an adorable Mexican street dog who is being treated for a mysterious gunshot wound. Bettina impulsively adopts the dog, who she names Felix after the veterinarian who saved him. In investigating Felix’s past, Bettina discovers that his life is nothing like what she assumed. For one thing, he’s not a Mexican street dog at all. A former DEA drug-sniffing dog, Felix has led a very colorful, dangerous and profitable life. With Bettina’s story going viral, some interesting people are looking for Felix, making him a target --- again. Bettina soon finds herself drawn into a deadly criminal underworld from which she and her beloved dog may not return.

Harriet and Wyn have been the perfect couple since they met in college. But they broke up five months ago and still haven’t told their best friends. This is how they find themselves sharing a bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group’s yearly getaway for the last decade. Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. The cottage is for sale, and this is the last week they’ll all have together in this place. They can’t stand to break their friends’ hearts, and so they’ll play their parts. It’s a flawless plan (if you look at it from a great distance and through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses). After years of being in love, how hard can it be to fake it for one week…in front of those who know you best?

As a team, Matt Drake and his partner, Frodo, have watched each other's backs through some very dark days. One thing they've never doubted was their commitment to each other. Until now. Frodo has been accused of a war crime 10 years after leaving Afghanistan. Matt is determined to prove his friend innocent. But what will he do when he finds that his closest friend has secrets he won't share?

Joe Goldberg is ready for a change. Instead of selling books, he’s writing them. And he’s off to a good start. Glenn Shoddy, an acclaimed literary author, recognizes Joe’s genius and invites him to join a tight-knit writing fellowship at Harvard. Unfortunately, his already-published, already-distinguished peers all seem to be cut from the same elitist cloth. Thankfully, Wonder Parish enters the picture. They have so much in common. No college degrees, no pretensions, no stories from prep school or grad school. Just a love for literature. If only Wonder could commit herself to the writing life, they could be those rare literary soulmates who never fall prey to their demons. Wonder has a tendency to love, to covet, but Joe is a believer in the rule of fiction: If you want to write a book, you have to kill your darlings.

If we’re lucky, we all encounter at least one person whose life elevates and inspires our own. For acclaimed novelist Daniel Wallace, he had one hero and inspiration for so much of what followed: his longtime friend and brother-in-law, William Nealy. William was an acclaimed outdoorsman, a famous cartoonist, an accomplished author, a master of all he undertook --- the ideal that Daniel sought to emulate. But when William took his own life at age 48, Daniel was left first grieving, and then furious with the man who broke his and his sister’s hearts. That anger led him to commit a grievous act of his own, a betrayal that took him down a dark path into the tortured recesses of William’s past. Eventually, a new picture of William emerged, of a man with too many secrets and too much shame to bear.

It’s 1746, and Georgian London is not a safe place for a young Black man. Charles Ignatius Sancho must dodge slave catchers and worse, and his main ally --- a kindly duke who taught him to write --- is dying. Sancho is desperate and utterly alone. So how does the same Charles Ignatius Sancho meet the king, write and play highly acclaimed music, become the first Black person to vote in Britain, and lead the fight to end slavery? Through every moment of this rich, exuberant tale, Sancho forges ahead to see how much he can achieve in one short life: “I had little right to live, born on a slave ship where my parents both died. But I survived, and indeed, you might say I did more.”

Sandtown is one of the deadliest neighborhoods in the world. It earned Baltimore its nickname Bodymore, Murderland, and was made notorious by David Simon’s classic HBO series “The Wire.” Drug deals dominate street corners, and ruthless, casual violence abounds. Montana Barronette was the leader of the gang “Trained to Go” (or TTG), and when he was finally arrested and sentenced to life in prison, he had been nicknamed “Baltimore’s Number One Trigger Puller.” After a string of murders are linked to TTG, three detectives set out to put Tana in prison for life. Now an acclaimed journalist who spent his youth in the white suburbs of Baltimore, Mark Bowden returns to the city with exclusive access to the FBI files and unprecedented insight into one of the city’s deadliest gangs and its notorious leader.

It’s a warm, bright October afternoon, and Ozro Armstead walks out into the brilliant sunshine on his 37th birthday. At home, his wife Deborah and daughter Trinity prepare a surprise celebration; down the street, his brother waves as Oz heads back to his office after having lunch together. But he won’t make it to the party or even to his briefcase back at his desk. He's about to disappear. In the days, months and years to follow, Deborah and Trinity look backward and forward as they piece together the life of the man they love, but whom they come to realize they might never have truly known.