“A Vonnegut tinged absurdist satire . . . (a) tightly paced, expertly drawn comic romp” from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Mosquito Coast (LitReactor). Paul Theroux, one of the world’s most popular authors, both for his travel books and his fiction, has produced an off-beat story of 1960s weirdos unlike anything he has ever written. During the time of Lyndon Johnson’s presidency, Herbie Gneiss is forced to leave college to get a job. His income from the Kant-Brake toy factory, which manufactures military toys for children, keeps his chocolate-loving mother from starvation. Mr. Gibbon, a patriotic veteran of three wars, also works at Kant-Brake. When Herbie is drafted, Mr. Gibbon falls in love with Herbie’s mother and they move in together at Miss Ball’s rooming house. Since Herbie is fighting for his country, Mr. Gibbon feels that he, too, should do something for his country and convinces Miss Ball and Mrs. Gneiss to join him in the venture. They decide to rob the Mount Holly Trust Company because it is managed by a small dark man who is probably a communist. There are some complications. Combine Donald E. Westlake with Abby Hoffman, add a bit of Gore Vidal at his most vitriolic, and you will have Murder in Mount Holly. “Parodies the American political fringe at a time when flags burned, hippies protested and commies lurked everywhere . . . you’ll have little difficulty inserting today’s fringe characters into Theroux’s lampoon.” —Star Tribune “The geezer psychopath finally gets his due . . . The fun here is in how hateful the characters are.” —The New York Times Book Review

From the mid-18th century, Mount Holly was known as Woodlawn, for Capt. Robert Alexander's farm. Alexander was a power in military and state affairs. When European settlers arrived, they found Catawba Indian settlements along the river. The historic Tuckaseegee Ford and Trail became a pathway west across the Catawba River for pioneers and for famous French botanist André Michaux in the late 18th century. Gaston County's first two textile mills, Mountain Island Mill (1848) and Woodlawn Mill (1852), bordered the Woodlawn community and started a textile revolution. The Mount Holly Cotton Mill (1874), the fourth Gaston County mill built in Woodlawn, became the name of the town in 1879. Capt. Wash Holland formed the acclaimed Euterpean Band in the early 1890s and was selected to play at the inauguration of Pres. William McKinley in 1897. American & Efird, Inc., a global thread company, has been headquartered in Mount Holly since 1891. Now, the river that drew early industry attracts boaters and kayakers from across the nation.

Mount Holly's history predates the American Revolution by nearly one hundred years. Walter Reeves, who lived on the Rancocas Creek before 1677, purchased land in what would become Mount Holly from Native Americans or assumed ownership through squatter's rights. The community is home to the oldest operating fire company in the United States, the Prison Museum designed by Robert Mills, and the oldest schoolhouse in New Jersey, still on its original site. Occasionally throughout its history, Mount Holly has fallen victim to the Rancocas Creek, which has swelled over its banks and spilled into the streets. Many bridges were built, allowing residents to pass over the creek and offering Mount Holly its first name, Bridgetown. As early as 1723, entrepreneurs took advantage of the water by digging the millrace, which powered the great mills that became the impetus for development and commerce in Mount Holly. The mills are gone now, but the town that developed around them still has all the character of an early working town. Mount Holly takes a glance at the early commerce, architecture, unfortunate disasters, and celebrations that molded this town into the diverse community that it is today.

Bringing a whole new meaning to the term "historical interaction," Bastien visits firehouses, taverns and cemeteries to exhume those bits of the past whose clammy fingers still cling to the present. The vividness of her spellbinding accounts will have you smelling the sulfur of dead-but-not-departed Hessian mercenaries in less time than it takes to shiver.

Winner, ISHS Best of Illinois History Award, 2019 In this riveting true story of coming of age in the Chicago Mob, Charles “Charley” Hager is plucked from his rural West Virginia home by an uncle in the 1960s and thrown into an underworld of money, cars, crime, and murder on the streets of Chicago Heights. Street-smart and good with his hands, Hager is accepted into the working life of a chauffeur and “street tax” collector, earning the moniker “Little Joe College” by notorious mob boss Albert Tocco. But when his childhood friend is gunned down by a hit man, Hager finds himself a bit player in the events surrounding the mysterious, and yet unsolved, murder of mafia chief Sam Giancana. Chicago Heights is part rags-to-riches story, part murder mystery, and part redemption tale. Hager, with author David T. Miller, juxtaposes his early years in West Virginia with his life in crime, intricately weaving his own experiences into the fabric of mob life, its many characters, and the murder of Giancana. Fueled by vivid recollections of turf wars and chop shops, of fix-ridden harness racing and the turbulent politics of the 1960s, Chicago Heights reveals similarities between high-level organized crime in the city and the corrupt lawlessness of Appalachia. Hager candidly reveals how he got caught up in a criminal life, what it cost him, and how he rebuilt his life back in West Virginia with a prison record. Based on interviews with Hager and supplemented by additional interviews and extensive research by Miller, the book also adds Hager’s unique voice to the volumes of speculation about Giancana’s murder, offering a plausible theory of what happened on that June night in 1975.

This book presents the manner in which builders adapted to the whimsy of a river and the tides of technological, social, and political change while preserving the beauty and grandeur for which the South is known.

Contains over seventy tales of ghostly hauntings from each of the fifty United States and Canada.