After a near-fatal hunting accident, Jim Johnson started his second term as mayor of Grandin Road. It’s a challenging task, one that only a few can handle. Johnson isn’t used to arguments in the corporation boardroom and has always demanded undivided attention to the project at hand and those that take part in them. When the city council members become argumentative and downright hostile to his proposals, he calls on CW Coleman to settle the disputes between the members and himself. “Ain’t no damn fool going to stick his head in a gator’s mouth, and that’s just what you’d be doing if you cross Coleman,” he tells his daughter, Katie. Coleman, who is a member of the council by right but not an active participant, suddenly finds himself surrounded with a multitude of petty problems that he has no time for and far less patience. He and Johnson begin to resolve each issue in a timely fashion until one of his employees disappears. Johnson has an idea of who’s involved, but for reasons of his own, he hesitates to tell Coleman. The same reasons that his daughter, Katie, left Taylor County for twenty years. Johnson doesn’t want to reveal that there might be a mob connection and have to deal with Coleman’s reaction to that small fact.

For four women, the bonds of friendship had sustained them for twenty years, through marriage, motherhood — and murder. Looking back, it seemed like paradise — lives filled with the blessings of friendship, marriage, children and career. Over twenty years, four friends shared everything through good times and bad, and together they faced the challenges of life and love head on. Now, one of their number sits alone to ponder the strange twists and turns of fate and the unpredictability of circumstance. Now, she must sift through each of their pasts to discover exactly what went wrong, how dreams turned to nightmares, how friendships faded and how lives were destroyed. In this powerful novel, Joy Fielding explores the bonds women forge, the nature of friendships, and the meaning of unconditional love.

The #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Our Crowd shares an intimate social history of America’s elite Black society in the 1970s. From New York to Chicago, Atlanta, and Washington, DC, Stephen Birmingham met with members of Black America’s upper crust—those old families of money and lineage who send their children to boarding schools and make business alliances over charity dinners. Invited into their homes, he became acquainted with their private world: their traditions and customs, their networks and conflicts, and, of course, their many stories. In Certain People, Birmingham presents a panoramic social history of upper-class Black society, one full of anecdotes and telling observations. From the Palmer Memorial Institute of North Carolina, where the best families sent their children, to the halls of the Johnson Publishing Company, creator of Ebony and Jet magazines, Birmingham provides an intimate glimpse of this exclusive crowd.

In Anne McCaffrey’s New York Times bestselling Dragonseye, join Weyrleaders, Holders, and Craftmasters in the creation of the legendary Star Stones and the teaching ballads of Pern! It's been two hundred years since the deadly Thread fell like rain upon Pern, devouring everything in its path. No one alive remembers that first horrific onslaught and no one believes in its return—except for the dragonriders. For two centuries they have been practicing and training, passing down from generation to generation the formidable Threadfighting techniques. Now the ominous signs are appearing: the violent winter storms and volcanic eruptions that are said to herald the approach of the Red Star and its lethal spawn. But one stubborn Lord Holder, Chalkin of Bitra, refuses to believe--and that disbelief could spell disaster. So as the dragonriders desperately train to face a terrifying enemy, they and the other Lord Holders must find a way to deal with Chalkin—before history repeats itself and unleashes its virulence on all of Pern. . . .

17th. includes 2nd. annual report of Platting Commission.