"Against the backdrop of ongoing massive resistance to racial desegregation and increasingly strident calls for Black Power, the NBA in the 1970s embodied the nation's imagined descent into disorder. The press and the public blamed young Black players for the chaos in the NBA, citing drugs, violence, greed, and criminality. The supposed decline of pro basketball became a metaphor for the first decades of integration in America: the rules of the game...

"In Game of Mirrors, Inspector Montalbano and his colleagues are stumped when two bombs explode outside empty warehouses-one of which is connected to a big-time drug dealer. Meanwhile, the alluring Liliana Lombardo is trying to seduce the Inspector over red wine and arancini. Between pesky reporters, amorous trysts, and cocaine kingpins, Montalbano feels as if he's being manipulated on all fronts. That is, until the inspector himself becomes the prime...

"Before becoming executive chef and part owner of the California soul food restaurant Alta Adams in West LA, Keith Corbin had spent a quarter of his life in prison. Renowned as the best cook of crack cocaine in Los Angeles, Corbin more or less raised himself on the streets of Watts, learning to cook crack when he was only thirteen. He knew he was doing it right if it had the consistency of the roux his granny made for her gumbo. It was a violent business-one...